VIENNA, Ohio — It had all the trappings of a Donald Trump event, but in the end, something was missing.

Trump took his private, eponymous plane down a runway and parked it behind a stage. He enthralled throngs of fans while speaking at the appropriately named “Winner Aviation” outside Youngstown. He promised to build a border wall with Mexico, to fix a decades-old trade imbalance and to, more generally, “make America great again.” Most of all, he promised repeatedly that he’d win the election.


“I backed McCain. He lost. I backed Romney. He lost,” Trump said. “I said, ‘this time we’re gonna do it ourselves.'”

What the event lacked, however, was even a drop of the drama that defined Trump rallies over the weekend. Without a single interruption, Trump’s speech was a far cry from the violence of his events last week—and the exact opposite of a planned rally in Chicago where clashes between supporters and protesters led to the event being canceled.

Indeed, in the 2016 presidential campaign’s new normal, the rally was among the most surprising things a Trump event can be: normal.

With the protesters absent, the event—which served as Trump’s closing statement to his supporters—centered on the billionaire’s message to his backers: a Trump win in Ohio would all but make him the GOP presidential nominee. The polls suggest that could well happen. Trump and John Kasich are close, and the event here appeared an attempt to snatch a last-minute victory.

“Kasich cannot make America great again,” he said, ridiculing the governor for spending more time in New Hampshire “than Chris Christie,” the New Jersey governor and supporter who introduced Trump.

Trump hit Kasich for supporting NAFTA as a congressman and for backing President Barack Obama’s trade deal with Asian companies. “The car business is going to be destroyed,” he said. “Nobody knows why he wants it. Maybe one of his lobbyists is recommending it.”

But Kasich also criss-crossed Ohio on Monday, flanked by Mitt Romney as he worked to protect a single-digit lead in recent surveys. And as he fights, Kasich may be the last vestige of hope for a Republican establishment that wants desperately to keep Trump from the promised land. And a win by Kasich here would, for a moment, raise questions about whether Trump — the undeniable front-runner for the GOP nod — can maintain his sky-high support through a July convention in Cleveland.

“I want to send a message to the country. Ohio should send a message to the country. Everybody’s watching us now. Do you know that?” Kasich said. “They are not just watching us in the country. They are watching us in the world … Don’t doubt America. It’s coming back. I need your vote.”

In a sense, the Ohio contest is a referendum on Kasich’s inclusive and upbeat version of politics compared to Trump’s hot-blooded and angry cries of unfairness — for workers, for American citizens, for blue-collar workers.

“You’re getting into a fairly significant moment in the history of the Republican Party and the conservative coalition … the orthodoxies since the Reagan election,” said Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “The doctrines are being rewritten as we speak. What does a Republican believe in is a question that’s on the table now.

“This isn’t about pandering or preying on anyone’s insecurities. It’s about doing the right thing for the country,” said John E. Sununu, the former New Hampshire senator and Kasich ally.

Doing “the right thing,” was a theme of the day for Kasich supporters. Romney invoked it during an appearance in Green, Ohio earlier in the day.

Protesters wait before dawn, outside a church at Lenoir-Rhyne University before a March 14 rally for Donald Trump in Hickory, North Carolina. | AP Photo

“When he got in, he made a lot of changes. Those changes made a difference. Now he’s come back again to you,” Romney said.

But it may already be too late to stop Trump.

The mogul looks poised to romp in Florida Tuesday, essentially ending the campaign of Marco Rubio, the senator who has struggled to gain traction in his home state. Ted Cruz, who has stolen a few wins from Trump in early-state voting, is hopeful to overtake him before the convention, but the map — heavy on Northeast and industrial states without the hard-core conservative base that has propelled him so far, appears tilted toward Trump.

The rally here brought out the gamut of Trump backers: Nick Vechiarelli, a Yankees fan from New York who thinks Trump would be great — if he’s not in the tank for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton — Glenn Hlebak, a Kingsville, Ohio native who loves Trump because he “can’t be bought,” and another man, Anthony Bordell. sporting a tattoo of Trump’s grinning mug on his right bicep.

But the voter most important to Trump’s bid is Mike Hoostal. Hoostal, 53, lost his job at a steel mill here four months ago and said he’s been volunteering for Trump since. He’s a Navy veteran who spent time in 12 countries and more than a year at sea, and he’s got two kids in their 20s. In short, he’s the precise profile of the disaffected voters Trump has been drawing like moths to a light.

“It’s time we had a businessman instead of a career politician,” Hoostal said. “He did this all on his own. He built a very elaborate company.”

Still, without the threat of conflict to heighten the tension, Trump’s rally ended in a fashion typical of many of his competitors. The energy faded during the speech’s second half, and before Trump had finished speaking, many found their way to the exits.