President Trump rallied in Bullhead City with Arizona gubernatorial nominee Andy Biggs as early voting rolls, defending his tariffs and the Iran war while two GOP House candidates stayed away.
President Donald Trump brought his midterm blitz to the Arizona-Nevada line on Wednesday, headlining a rally at Laughlin Bullhead International Airport in Bullhead City as early voting rolls across the Grand Canyon State. The president shared the stage with Rep. Andy Biggs, the Republican gubernatorial nominee he has endorsed, in Mohave County -- one of the most conservative corners of a state that will help decide control of the House and the governor's mansion on Nov. 3.
Trump spoke for roughly an hour and forty-five minutes to a packed desert crowd, closing a Western swing that has carried him through reliably red territory and one deep-blue detour on his way to Montana the same evening. The stop was part travelogue, part closing argument: a president asking his base to turn out for allies in a state where the ballots are already moving.
Trump used the Bullhead City stop to argue that his tariff agenda is rebuilding American industry, holding up Arizona itself as the proof. "I impose a 50% tariff on foreign copper and as a result Arizona's historic copper is roaring back to health," he told the crowd.
The president said the state's semiconductor boom would have been impossible without the trade posture he has restored, arguing manufacturers spent decades shipping jobs overseas because Washington refused to tax the imports that undercut them. "Look what's happening in Europe. They don't do tariffs. They're being eaten alive," he said.
On affordability, Trump said the cost of rent in Arizona has fallen 14% since the Biden years "and it's gonna go down by another 20 or 25%." He credited his first term with what he called the strongest financial stretch in American history and insisted the country is climbing again despite what he described as a hostile press corps and a stalled Democratic agenda.
The message was calibrated for a county that delivered for him by wide margins in 2024. Mohave County is represented by Rep. Paul Gosar and sits far from the suburban swing districts that will shape which party controls the next Congress -- a fact that made the stop as much a base-energizing exercise as a persuasion play.
Trump invited Biggs to the microphone for brief remarks and shook his hand, cementing a partnership the president has staked real political capital on. Biggs, who won the GOP primary for governor earlier this year, is running to unseat Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.
The timing was deliberate. Early voting opened Oct. 7, and Arizona Republicans are working to bank as many ballots as possible before Election Day on Nov. 3. The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is Oct. 23, and the last day to mail one back is Oct. 27.
Trump ran through a roster of Arizona allies, calling Gosar a lawmaker he loves and congressional candidate Mark Lamb "a friend of mine." He thanked Bullhead City Mayor Karen Dallman, state GOP Chairman Sergio Arellano, and Reps. Abe Hamadeh and Eli Crane, and said state Rep. Alex Kolodin is "central casting" for a secretary of state.
The visit came one day after former President Barack Obama cut a 45-second video endorsing Hobbs, a reminder that Democrats are pouring national firepower into the state. Trump answered with the rally-stage version of the same playbook -- volume, repetition and a direct appeal to the voters most likely to show up.
The war with Iran has become one of the sharpest vulnerabilities in the president's midterm map, with gasoline prices up roughly 40% in Arizona. Trump did not retreat from the decision. He said Tehran was two weeks away from completing a nuclear weapon when the United States struck, and he framed the higher pump prices as a temporary cost of denying the regime a bomb.
"We don't need any help with Iran. We've done so well there," Trump said. He pledged the conflict would end "very soon" and predicted relief would follow. "When that ends, your gasoline is going to go down to even lower than it was before," he said, calling today's prices a "very small price" to pay for keeping a nuclear weapon out of Tehran's hands.
He also had a blunt word for government officials who funnel internal information to the press. "In the old days we used to shoot leakers, you know," Trump said. "Leakers should be dealt with very, very strongly. To me, they're the scum of the earth." He spoke from behind a protective pane of security glass, a visible reminder of the 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Trump tied past affordability struggles to the border invasion under the previous administration, arguing lax enforcement made housing and services harder for working Americans to afford, and he credited the enforcement push his own administration has pursued with easing the squeeze.
Not every Arizona Republican wanted to be seen at the airport. Jay Feely and Rep. Juan Ciscomani, the GOP nominees in the state's two most competitive House districts, both skipped the rally. Aides said each had long-scheduled commitments; Feely's consultant called the conflict regrettable, while Ciscomani's office pointed to a Tucson Chamber of Commerce event and a veterans recognition.
Democratic-aligned groups have spent millions tying the two to Trump, and at least one conservative consultant told local reporters it would be "political suicide" to appear at a rural rally hundreds of miles from their districts. A survey released in the final stretch pointed to soft GOP enthusiasm and economic anxiety, with independent voters drifting toward Democrats in key races.
Trump treated the headwinds as a reason to work harder, not to hedge. He closed with a stack of promises should Republicans hold Congress -- fighting corruption, extending tax relief, tightening voter ID laws and sending money back to households. "If you elect a Republican House and a Republican Senate November 3rd, you're gonna get $5,000. Go and do it," he said. "The golden age of America is upon us, but you must get out and vote."
Trump was scheduled to rally in Montana later Wednesday, the next stop on a tour that will run right up to Election Day. For Arizona Republicans, the message out of Bullhead City was simple: the ballots are already moving, and the margin will be decided by who shows up next.
President Trump rallied in Bullhead City with Arizona gubernatorial nominee Andy Biggs as early voting rolls, defending his tariffs and the Iran war while two GOP House candidates stayed away.
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