Donald Trump will hold his first campaign rally on Saturday since he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt one week ago and fresh from his nominating convention where his takeover of the Republican Party was cemented.
Mr Trump will appear in Grand Rapids, in the battleground state of Michigan, along with his new vice-presidential pick, Ohio senator JD Vance. It will be their first campaign event together as the now official Republican presidential ticket.
Republican Party officials said during Mr Trump’s nominating convention in Milwaukee this week that his brush with death last Saturday had changed him, and that when he made his acceptance speech on Thursday night he would call for national unity.
Mr Trump gave a detailed account of his narrow brush with death in his convention speech on Thursday, telling the audience that he was only talking to them “by the grace of Almighty God”.
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However, while the Republican candidate began the address with a call for unity and national healing, much of his speech was his well-known list of grievances and attacks on opponents.
It is unclear what type of a speech Mr Trump will deliver on Saturday, but his diehard supporters typically flock to such events to hear Trump’s more traditional inflammatory rhetoric.
Mr Trump and Mr Vance will take the stage in Grand Rapids with the Republican Party unified behind them after this week’s nominating convention.
In contrast, the Democrats are in turmoil and it is no longer certain that President Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee facing Mr Trump in the November 5th election.
Mr Biden is facing mounting calls from many elected officials in his own party to step aside as the party’s White House candidate and to end his re-election bid, after his poor debate performance against Mr Trump last month.
The US president is trailing in opinion polls and is behind in every swing state against Mr Trump. Many Democrats fear he may have almost no path to victory and that the party needs a new presidential candidate to take on Mr Trump.
Almost 35 Democrats in US Congress say it is time for Mr Biden to step aside, with 12 coming forward on Friday. More legislators are expected to speak out in the days ahead.
The latest high-profile name to join the chorus was Sherrod Brown, when the embattled Ohio senator broke cover on Friday evening to call for an end to Biden’s re-election campaign.
“I’ve heard from Ohioans on important issues, such as how to continue to grow jobs in our state, give law enforcement the resources to crack down on fentanyl, protect social security and Medicare from cuts, and prevent the ongoing efforts to impose a national abortion ban,” Mr Brown said in a statement.
He added: “At this critical time, our full attention must return to these important issues. I think the president should end his campaign.”
A US congressman said he decided to join calls for Mr Biden to exit the presidential race after he claimed the 81-year-old appeared not to recognise him at a recent event.
Seth Moulton, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, was one of the first Democrats to call for Mr Biden to drop out of the race shortly after his disastrous debate performance last month. On Friday, Moulton ramped up his efforts to oust the president from the 2024 ticket in a damning op-ed for the Boston Globe.
Mr Moulton said he met the president in a small group for the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy on June 6th. “For the first time, he didn’t seem to recognise me,” the Democrat wrote. “Of course, that can happen as anyone ages but, as I watched the disastrous debate a few weeks ago, I have to admit that what I saw in Normandy was part of a deeper problem.
“It was a crushing realisation, and not because a person I care about had a rough night but because everything is riding on Biden’s ability to beat Donald Trump in November. America needs him to win and, like most Americans, I’m no longer confident that he can. The president should bow out of the race,” Mr Moulton wrote.
Donors have also raised concerns, and an organisation – called Pass the Torch, Biden – is planning a rally on Saturday at the White House.
The stand-off has become increasingly untenable for the party and its leaders, a month from the Democratic National Convention that should be a unifying moment to nominate their incumbent president to confront Mr Trump.
The Trump rally in Grand Rapids will be in an indoor arena, unlike the event in Butler, Pennsylvania, last weekend that was outdoors.
At that event, the gunman was able to scale the roof of a building outside the secret service perimeter before opening fire on Mr Trump, clipping his ear, killing a rally-goer and wounding several others.
The secret service, which is responsible for protecting Mr Trump, declined to comment on security for the Grand Rapids event. An investigation is under way into the security failures at the Butler rally. – Agencies