22:17

Rome was built in a day - at least if you’re talking about Donald Trump’s rally in upstate New York.

Donald Trump speaks in an airplane hangar in Rome, New York. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

With just 24 hours notice, around 5,000 people turned up into a freezing cold airport hangar at Griffiss International Airport in Rome, New York to hear the billionaire candidate promise to bring jobs back to the struggling town.

This was a supportive Trump audience. Rome is a town in turmoil, its population dropping in recent decades as jobs dry up. Lots of large factory buildings and shops lay empty with for lease signs in the window.

“Is anybody working up here?” asked Donald Trump, just minutes after he appeared on stage. He rattled off the numbers: 60% of manufacturing jobs gone in the county since 1980. The crowd booed. Forty percent of manufacturing jobs gone since 2001. Median household income in New York state is $3700 less than per year than it was in 1989, said Trump.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked. When he spoke about the loss of manufacturing jobs, a supporter yelled out “bullshit!” in anger.

“I agree with you. But I’m not allowed to use that term” replied Trump.

“We’re going to bring our jobs back,” he declared to loud applause.

The airport is a former military base, decommissioned in the 1990s and now used for non combat training. A military plane kept practicing “touch-and-go” landings as the Trump supporters arrived. Trump turned up an hour late, by which time the hangar was completely full.

Unlike last night’s Trump rally in Albany, where around 100 protesters stood outside with posters chanting and fights broke out during the rally, no protesters appeared in Rome and it was a polite, low-key crowd. Even when Trump spoke about the “liars” in the media, and the crowd turned their thumbs down at the media pen, rather than flipping them the bird.

Trump continued his anger from last night in Albany about the “”rigged” Republican electoral process in Colorado, where he said he was the victim of a “crooked deal,” since Ted Cruz won all 34 Colorado delegates on the weekend.

“The RNC, the Republican National Convention, should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this kind of crap to happen,” said Trump. “Because it has nothing to do with democracy.” He said Republicans were burning up their membership cards in anger at the process.

“I think the Republicans have a worse system than the democrats. It’s a crooked system,” said Trump.

Some of his supporters agreed with his claims against the electoral system. Jacob Shade, 60, drove over two hours from his home in Rochester to attend Trump’s rally today.

“The Republican party wants to be controlled by the elite and do what the elite wants. And they don’t want Trump, because Trump is not one of them,” he told The Guardian.

“He’s not a politician, he’s a businessman, and that’s what we need to get us out of debt,” added his friend Valerie Goodhew, 65, a retired B&B operator, also from Rochester.

“I pray every day for this man, because I know the power force in this country does not want to see him as president. So I pray to God and he may be our Sirius. God may have given us another chance to turn around and get away from all the evil we’ve sunken to,” she added.