Watch Replay: Donald Trump, Mike Pence Final Rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, will make a final appeal late Monday night, hours before polls open in Tuesday’s historic general election.

The 11 p.m. rally in Grand Rapids is at 11 p.m. Eastern time at Devo’s Place, 303 Monroe Ave. NW. Tickets are available on Trump’s website.

Trump chose Michigan for the final rally of his unprecedented campaign because recent polls show he and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, are in a virtual dead heat to capture the state’s 16 electoral votes.

Both Trump and Pence were in Michigan Sunday, Pence in Traverse City and the billionaire businessman, casino owner and reality television star at a raucous rally in Sterling Heights Sunday. During the 40-minute rally, the billionaire businessman, casino owner and reality television star hammered on familiar promises, such as a promise Detroit’s Big Three automakers from moving manufacturing plants out of the United States and return jobs to Michigan.

The state has been “decimated” by Democratic trade policies, Trump said, a contrast to comments made by Clinton during a stop in Detroit Friday, where she noted the auto industry finished one of its best years ever in 2015.

The auto industry did shed jobs during and after the Great Recession, though. About a quarter of the 219,000 jobs Michigan lost during the recession were in the “transportation equipment manufacturing” sector, where about two-thirds of state workers were employed. In 2000, the auto industry accounted for one in every 13.5 jobs in Michigan, but just one in 24.5 jobs in 2014.

“Unbelievable what's going on,” Trump said at the rally in Sterling Heights, referring to polls that show he is in striking distance of winning Michigan’s trove of electoral votes. “In two days, we're going to win the great state of Michigan and we're going to win back the White House. ... We will stop the jobs from leaving your state.”

Trump, who has focused heavily in recent weeks on Michigan other Rust Belt states where Clinton is vulnerable, said that despite Clinton’s union endorsements, “The unions love me and the non-unions love me, too.”
“Our politicians are stupid people,” Trump said. “They don't know what to do (about jobs).”

Bringing out a line familiar in his rallies in Michigan, which he has visited numerous times since winning the Republican nomination, Trump said: “It used to be that the cars were made in Flint and you couldn't drink the water in Mexico. Now the cars are made in Mexico and you can't drink the water in Flint.”

Michigan hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since 1988, when President George H. Walker Bush was elected, but Trump is not only confident that he can turn the tide, but he has mocked Clinton’s focus on the state as well and said she is wasting her time.

“Michigan was never really in play for a Republican,” Trump said late Saturday at a rally in Denver, Colorado. “But you know what? It’s in play for us. Because all of their cars are being made now in Mexico.

“I think she's wasting her time,” Trump said. “I think rather than going to Michigan, she ought to go home and relax.”

The late-night rally caps a days long blitz by both candidates and their surrogates. For her part, Clinton planned a 2-4 p.m. rally in Allendale, in the greater Grand Rapids area. Earlier in the day, President Obama, who has been on a barnstorming tour for Clinton over the past week, was scheduled to speak in Ann Arbor. Former President Bill Clinton rallied support among Arab Americans in Dearborn Sunday.

In addition to the rallies Trump and Pence’s rallies in Sterling Heights and Traverse City, former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin campaigned for Trump in Michigan Sunday.

Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons