Jeremy Cox

The (Salisbury, Md.) Daily Times

SALISBURY, Md. — A man known for saying unpleasant things about rivals in his rise to the top of the Republican presidential field came to the “The Land of Pleasant Living” on Wednesday — an apt stop for a campaign pivoting toward a milder tone.

But in a trademark stream-of-consciousness speech at Stephen Decatur High School near Berlin, Trump said he has no plans to soften his style.

“We’re not going to be so politically correct,” said Trump, addressing a raucous crowd of about 1,000 people. Thousands more were turned away.

If polling ahead of Tuesday's primary is to be believed, Trump needs only to maintain his commanding lead in Maryland. A Monmouth University poll last week showed the billionaire businessman garnering 47% of support among likely voters, with Ohio Gov. John Kasich receiving 27% and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz picking up 19%.

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The Maryland primary carries additional weight this year. Typically, presidential primary contests have been all but sewn up by the time the Free State gets a chance to vote. But this year’s outcome could help Trump cement his front-runner status and head off a contested convention this July in Cleveland — or not.

So, there was Trump stumping in deeply red Worcester County, where Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama 58% to 40% in 2012.

Although the event wasn’t announced until late Monday, the line of people waiting to get in stretched about a half-mile down Seahawk Road at its zenith.

The choice of a high school gym stood in stark contrast to the arenas the Trump campaign has preferred so far. The fire marshal estimated that the room could hold about 1,000, and another 3,000 could fit in overflow areas elsewhere indoors.

“There’s thousands of people outside,” Trump told the audience inside. “It’s packed. We’ll make the gym bigger next time.”

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The parking lot of a long-closed Harley Davidson dealership turned into a de facto festival grounds. An orange pickup truck blared country music as vendors with carts loaded with Trump-themed merchandise weaved through the crowd.

Betsy LaBar, a poultry grower from Laurel, Del., said she was drawn to the candidate because of his unvarnished speaking style and his tough stance on immigration.

“I like everything he says and he’s not controlled,” LaBar said as she waited in line to get inside. But she added that she is OK with him throttling back on the tone of his rhetoric, saying, “I think he’s toning that down more. I think he’s hired new people.”

Andrew Nock, a senior at Stephen Decatur, expressed his support for Trump’s call to deport thousands of undocumented workers on his pickup truck. “Send them all back,” he had written in window paint along the side panel.

“That way they can’t take all our jobs,” Nock said.

Trump’s gave a 45-minute stump speech — building a wall along the Mexican border to keep out “illegal aliens,” strengthening the military, reversing the trade deficit, “winning” at every turn. It was, in typical fashion, long on promises and short on details.

He sprinkled it here and there with a few Maryland-tailored comments.

“Maryland’s great, but I’d rather be right across the Potomac,” he said.

And there was the characteristic slip.

“Do we love Tom Brady?” he asked despite being in the buckle of the Baltimore Ravens belt.

“Easy, easy,” he implored over a cascade of boos.

Newly hired, veteran political advisers have spoken of a shift in the campaign in recent days, vowing a less-abrasive Trump. But the candidate seemed to push back against such advice, calling members of the conservative Club for Growth “losers” and renewing criticism of “gangs coming in from Latin America, South America.”

Trump may have had to tone down his rhetoric whether he liked it or not Wednesday. The rules for behavior inside the gym, according to signs posted above the bleachers, inveigh against “profane language.”

Contributing: Mitchell Northam, The (Salisbury, Md.) Daily Times. Follow Jeremy Cox on Twitter: @Jeremy_Cox