President Trump held his first campaign rally Wednesday in a state that he lost to Hillary Clinton two years ago, visiting Minnesota to revel in the strong economy and the state’s revived mining industry.

At a packed arena of 9,000 with many others unable to get in, Mr. Trump defended his tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum as necessary to protect U.S. workers.

“We’re fighting to protect American iron, aluminum and steel, and fighting to protect our incredible and very brave miners,” Mr. Trump said to cheers.

The president was campaigning for Republican Pete Stauber, who’s running for an open seat in Minnesota’s Eighth congressional district. Mr. Trump said voters need to vote Republican in November “to keep this momentum” on the economy.

“We need more Republicans in the midterms,” he said. “A vote for a Democrat in the midterm is really a vote for Nancy Pelosi and her radical agenda. They would have put on more regulations and raise the hell out of your taxes, and the whole thing will go ‘boom.’ We’re not going to let it happen. We’ve worked too hard to get here.”

He also accused Democrats of pushing for illegal immigration, on the day he signed an executive order stopping his policy of separating children from parents who enter the country illegally.

“We want people to come in through merit, not through happenstance,” Mr. Trump said. “We need safety.”

He said the media never talks about American families who are “separated” by violence committed by illegal immigrants.

A few hecklers were removed from the arena during the early part of the rally as the crowd chanted “U.S.A.” and Mr. Trump taunted “go home to your mommy.”

The president also held a roundtable with workers at the Port of Duluth-Superior to discuss the state’s improved iron mining industry, which has benefited from the administration’s deregulation.

“So much work is going forward in Minnesota,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ve cut out massive numbers of regulations. And we have more to cut. The era for economic surrender for the United States is over.”

He was joined by business leaders, workers and elected officials including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, California Republican, who referred to Mr. Trump as “an iron president.”

“What a difference one president makes,” he said.

Mr. Trump lost Minnesota in 2016 to Mrs. Clinton by 1.5 percentage points. He joked that he would have won the state if he had only made “one more speech!”

Rep. Tom Emmer, Minnesota Republican, predicted that Mr. Trump will become in 2020 the first GOP candidate to win the state since 1972.

“You are a leader a time when there are so few leaders around the world,” Mr. Emmer said. “The people that you see in this room right now … have been dying for somebody to hear them, to listen to them, and to understand what they need. Instead they’ve had academics and intellectuals patting them on the head for years. God bless you for following through and talking to the forgotten men and women of this country.”

But Rep. Keith Ellison, a top Democratic National Committee official who’s running for attorney general in Minnesota, criticized Mr. Trump bringing his “divisive rhetoric” to Duluth.

“This administration is failing to protect the rights and freedoms our country stands for – from separating families at the border, to repealing net neutrality, to jeopardizing healthcare for millions,” Mr. Ellison said. “With President Trump spreading his hateful message again tonight, there’s no better time to stay connected.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said Minnesota’s 8th congressional district, which includes Duluth, stands to lose 18,000 good-paying jobs due to Mr. Trump’s trade feud with neighboring Canada. She also said the average tax cut for the bottom 80 percent of Minnesotans is $774 this year.

“The American people are confronted with a GOP Congress and administration that has taken every opportunity to stack the deck for the wealthy and well-connected against hard-working American families and seniors,” she said. “From health care, to taxes, to good-paying jobs, to critical consumer protections President Trump and the GOP Congress are giving the American people a raw deal.”

Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters

Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.