WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — The line to see Donald J. Trump snaked back and forth on itself hours before his arrival. There was a carnival atmosphere with people in costumes, including one prison-striped man with a sign, “Don’t let the government-run media elect crooked Hillary.” A cavalcade of motorcycles roared up, and there were cheers and laughter for a man shouting, “Donald Trump is going to make America great! He hasn’t paid taxes in 20 years!”

A day after Mr. Trump defended himself at the second presidential debate for making vulgar comments about women, amid a wave of polls showing an increasing lead for Hillary Clinton, thousands of Trump supporters turned out with undimmed fervor for the Republican nominee and optimism about his electoral prospects.

They echoed nearly verbatim Mr. Trump’s defense that his lewd comments about women on a 2005 recording were merely “locker room talk,” calling them harmless words compared with the far-worse actions Mrs. Clinton and her husband had taken to shame women.