Brian Sharp

@SharpRoc

Rallying thousands here Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to turn things around quickly for Rochester, saying he would make "great, great trade deals" that would bring jobs back to upstate.

"You need somebody fast, I know that," Trump said, and a crowd the U.S. Secret Service estimated at 7,500 responded with chants of "Trump! Trump! Trump!"

"We're going to get it straightened out, folks. It's not going to be that hard. It's going to go quickly."

With little more than a week to go before the New York primary, the Trump rally kicked off a busy political week for Rochester. Democratic candidate and Sen. Bernie Sanders is expected on Tuesday, with Trump rival Sen. Ted Cruz expected sometime this week.

Trump, the GOP front-runner, sought to connect with local voters, saying he has friends here, "incredible people," referencing Bausch + Lomb and Xerox, and holding up SentrySafe closing its Pittsford plant, and moving jobs to Mexico, as an example. He drew cheers telling the crowd: "I would stop them so fast, your heads would spin."

"You look at all the companies that are leaving, and all the jobs that are being lost," Trump said in an interview backstage before the rally. "And they are moving to Mexico and everyplace else but Rochester. I'll turn it around, believe me. I'll turn it around for New York. I'll turn it around for Rochester."

The rally took place in an airport hangar, with supporters spilling out onto the tarmac, while a massive American flag served as a backdrop to the speaker's podium. Small pockets of protesters briefly interrupted Trump's hour-long speech on two occasions, while a larger group gathered across Scottsville Road outside. Vendors peddled T-shirts, caps and buttons, flags, signs and even teddy bears.

"I'm 64, I haven't seen anything like this in my life," said Darryl Rock of Greece, who arrived four hours early to assure a place inside the standing-room only rally. "I'm glad I came today. Something I'll remember — but my feet hurt."

Many hundreds of people were turned away. “Please apologize to them,” Trump said. “I’ll come back.”

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Crowds began filing in three hours before Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino took to the stage to fire up the crowd. He drew the first of the signature chants: "Build that wall! Build that wall!" and told the audience, "He's going to love you guys." Trump would later estimate the crowd at 10,000, and tell the crowd that between 5,000 and 6,000 were turned away.

He came armed with statistics about the Rochester economy, some of which missed the mark. He claimed, for example, that Rochester had lost 4,000 jobs in the past six months. But according to seasonally adjusted data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Rochester metro gained 1,337 jobs.

Regardless, Trump promised a turnaround: “I’m telling you, I will bring it back so fast.”

He went after SentrySafe, whose parent Master Lock Co. announced last June it would close its Linden Avenue plant this year and send those 350 jobs to Nogales, Mexico, and Wisconsin. The company described the move as a consolidation in an effort to remain competitive. Trump said that, if he were president, he wouldn't buy SentrySafe but would slap a considerable tariff on their products.

"If they know they're going to pay a 35 percent tax, they're not moving folks," he said.

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Trump blamed the state and federal government for the Flower City's job loss, saying in an interview that, "what they've done to Rochester is sinful."

"I want to see the economy change. That's my biggest thing about Trump," said Denise Cappon, 53, of Irondequoit. "So much of what he's said, I'll admit, sometimes he doesn't say the right things. But he means the right thing."

She and others in the crowd expressed frustration and nervousness about the possibility of a contested, or brokered convention. She isn't a Cruz fan, where, elsewhere in the crowd, David Amico, 26, of Gates, called Cruz "a good guy," but added: "I just like Donald Trump a lot more."

"I think you are going to have a lot of people fall off if it's not me," Trump said in an interview, arguing he has "won on the votes."

During the rally, he called the nominating process “a crooked system” and “a corrupt deal,” telling supporters: “They’re taking your vote away. They’re disenfranchising people who want to see America be great again.”

Amico, who served in the National Guard, said Trump stands up for veterans. Career politicians, he said, spend and spend, and make decisions like raising the minimum wage without regard for the cost. But Trump is a businessman, and Amico said he thinks it's time that the country be run like a business.

"If I get elected, Rochester is going to boom again," Trump said, mentioning the city time and again during a wide-ranging speech that touched on everything from the political race to guns, Iraq, trade agreements, to keeping Guantanamo open "and filling it up" and winning again in trade.

"Our whole country is going to boom again," Trump said.

BDSHARP@Gannett.com