“If you give us a hand choosing the League in the European Elections on May 26, we will go to Brussels and bring back Italian farming, which has been massacred in recent years by Canadian grain, Cambodian rice, Moroccan tomatoes, Tunisian oranges, olive oil from the other part of the world,” Mr. Salvini said. “We will battle for our children to eat and drink Italian products. And this depends on Europe.”

Towns should give benefits and housing to Italians before “Roma and asylum seekers,” he said. He defended his record of blocking ships carrying rescued migrants who “say they have escaped from war and then go around Tarquinia with a baseball cap and a cellphone and sneakers to sell drugs in the parks.”

He mocked the critics who describe him as “racist, fascist, Nazi, populist, sexist, homophobic, etc., etc.,” simply because he puts Italian men and women first. He alleged that Italy was suffering under a double emergency of drugs and sex crimes — namely pedophilia and rape. “There needs to be chemical castration,” he said to wild applause.

It was all part of the forever campaign of Mr. Salvini. He is constantly on television talk shows, on Facebook Live and on campaign stages. And it appears to work for him.

Mr. Salvini’s breezy demeanor, expertly calibrated populist anger and blanket social media game have catapulted him from the single-digit margins of Italian politics to the strongest political force in Italy — and potentially Europe.

But with so much campaigning to be done, who has time to govern? Critics have noted that, since taking office last June, Mr. Salvini has hardly been in the office.