Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, and Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, arrive at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 20, 2024, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI and JILL COLVIN Associated Press

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Donald Trump held his first campaign rally since surviving an assassination attempt on Saturday, returning to the uncertain state of Michigan with his new running mate.

“It was exactly one week ago, to the hour, to the minute,” Trump told the crowd, recalling the July 13 shooting in Pennsylvania that left him with a bloody ear, one of his supporters killed and two others wounded.

“I stand before you only by the grace of Almighty God,” he said, the white gauze on his ear now replaced by a flesh-colored bandage. “I shouldn’t be here right now,” he continued.

Trump was joined by Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio at the pair’s first event since being nominated by the GOP at the Republican Party convention in Milwaukee.

“I find it hard to believe that a week ago a hitman tried to take Donald Trump’s life, and now we have a huge crowd in Michigan to welcome him back to the campaign trail,” Vance said before Trump’s arrival.

Michigan is one of a handful of crucial swing states expected to determine the outcome of November’s presidential election. Trump narrowly won the state by just over 10,000 votes in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden won it back in 2020, winning by a margin of 154,000 votes to clinch the presidency.

After an unusually subdued and emotional display at the Republican convention, Trump returned to his usual rally mode, insulting his Democratic rivals, repeating his lies about the 2020 election and peppering his speech with jokes that drew laughter from the enthusiastic audience.

At one point, Trump looked at a screen showing him from an unusual angle and joked about his oversized hair.

“That’s a serious loser. What’s up with that?” he said. “I apologize. Man! I looked up and said, ‘Wow!’ That’s like a work of art!”

At another point, when inviting a supporter onto the stage, he joked, “He doesn’t carry any weapons!”

But Trump also spoke about the shooting, reenacting how he turned his head to look at a map of southern border crossings projected on a large screen as he narrowly avoided the bullet hitting his ear.

“I owe my life to immigration,” he said.

Hours before he took the stage, Trump’s supporters packed the streets of downtown Grand Rapids in anticipation of the former president’s remarks. Supporters began lining up Friday morning, and by Saturday afternoon, the line stretched nearly a mile from the entrance to the 12,000-seat Van Andel Arena.

Many wore shirts depicting Trump on stage after he was shot, with his fist in the air, along with the customary red caps reading “Make America Great Again.”

Mike Gaydos, who traveled from Indiana to the rally with his three sons, said he had not considered himself a “big” Trump supporter in the past but wanted to show his support for the former president after his attempted assassination.

“We can’t let something like that break our necks,” he said. “I thought he showed courage that day, and I want to show my sons what courage is.”

Numerous streets, closed off as an extra security measure, were lined with vendors selling food and clothing. Among them was a vendor from North Carolina who said he had spent the night making shirts that read “Trump Vance ‘24.”

Downtown Grand Rapids also saw a significant police presence, with officers stationed on nearly every block, while others patrolled on horseback and bicycles. The heightened security outside the venue created a tense atmosphere, with some attendees saying that drones overhead made them nervous. The event was held indoors, which made it easier to secure.

Upon entering the arena, visitors had to pass through a metal detector, but the security presence inside appeared comparable to previous events.

“This is the tightest security I’ve ever seen,” said Renee White, who said she’s been to 33 of Trump’s rallies. “Normally we can take some small bags, but today I had to just leave stuff there.”

White was behind the podium at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop. She described the shooting as “surreal” but said it wouldn’t stop her from attending his rallies.

“If I get eliminated, at least I’m doing something I love, right?” she said. She was back behind Trump on Saturday, in almost the same spot she was in Butler.

Trump’s selection of Vance was partly intended to help him win support from Rust Belt voters in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio, who helped Trump secure his surprise victory in 2016. Vance specifically mentioned those places during his convention acceptance speech, emphasizing that he grew up in poverty in a small town in Ohio and promising not to forget the working class, whose “jobs were sent overseas and their children were sent to war.”

Democrats have dominated Michigan’s recent elections, but Republicans now see an opening in the state, especially as Democrats remain divided over whether Biden should withdraw from the race.

Biden has insisted he won’t quit and has tried to turn the spotlight back on Trump, saying on Friday that Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention showed a “dark vision of the future.”

Trump polled the crowd on Saturday to see who they would see as his opponent. There were cheers for Biden, but loud booing when Trump asked about Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump and his team have attempted to portray the Democrats’ efforts to replace Biden as a “coup” in what appears to be part of a larger effort to distract from Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election after he refused to accept the results, as well as the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters.

“Right now, the Democratic Party bosses are desperately trying to overturn the results of their own party’s primaries to remove Crooked Joe Biden from the ballot,” Trump argued.

He later resisted attempts to portray him as a threat to democracy and an extremist, even as he promised mass deportations and threatened retaliation against his political enemies.

“They keep saying, ‘He’s a threat to democracy…’ Last week I took a bullet for democracy,” he said to loud cheers.

Trump also again sought to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a policy and personnel plan for a second Trump term that was drafted by a host of former administration officials.

Trump criticized the project, which has become a centerpiece of Biden’s campaign, as “far right” and “very extreme,” as well as “radical left.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” he insisted.

Biden’s campaign responded with a statement noting Trump’s speech accepting the GOP nomination, in which he called for unity and said he was “running for president for all of America, not half of America.”

“We were promised a new Donald Trump who would unite our country — instead, tonight we see the same Donald that Americans continue to reject,” said Biden-Harris spokesman Ammar Moussa. “He’s spreading the same lies, waging the same campaign of revenge and retaliation, touting the same failed policies and — as usual — focused only on himself.”

The 81-year-old incumbent Democrat, who appeared in Detroit this month, is currently in isolation at his beachfront home in Delaware recovering from COVID-19.

Democrat Hillary Scholten, Rep. from Grand Rapids, is among a growing number of lawmakers calling on Biden to withdraw from the race after his disastrous performance at last month’s debate.

___ Colvin reported from New York,