’Keep USA great’

Trump fires up Florida faithful in his 2020 campaign launch

President Trump greets First Lady Melania Trump.

ruption, told the crowd that together they had formed “a great political movement” that had “stared down a broken and corrupt political establishment.”

Supporters lined Orlando’s downtown sidewalks all day, waiting in tents and chairs overnight to be the first in the door.

“This is a historic event, we would not miss this for anything,” one fan, David Meloney, said.

Florida will be one of the key swing states in 2020 if Mr Trump is to defeat the nominee chosen from a field of 23 Democratic hopefuls.

And ahead of the rally, he pushed several of the core issues in his populist, nationalist platform. In a tweet on Tuesday, he attacked the European Union for what he says is currency manipulation making it “unfairly easier” for the EU to trade. Another big focus was illegal immigration. He said he wants the deportation of “millions of illegal aliens.” “They’re going to start next week,” he told journalists.

A wide range of polls show Mr Trump lagging far behind Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden, who is campaigning on a promise to return the country to what he portrays as the calmer, gentler days of Barack Obama, under whom he served as vice-president.

Polls so far in advance have limited value and in 2016 they famously failed to predict Mr Trump’s defeat of Democrat Hillary Clinton. If anything, the surveys point to another bitterly fought, tight race. But in a sign of frayed nerves, Mr Trump has lashed out at what he calls “fake” polling, while other reports say his campaign has fired several of its own pollsters.