Trump holds rally in Cleveland

Donald Trump speaks a crowd at the IX Center in Cleveland on Saturday, March 11, 2016 during his rally.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump held a rally at Cleveland’s IX Center on Saturday afternoon just days before Ohio’s primary elections.

Trump has led the republican delegate count since voting and caucusing began. Currently, 459 delegates have been given to Trump — almost 100 more than Ted Cruz, who remains in second place. Ohio has 66 winner-take-all delegates up for grabs on Tuesday.

Jim Sexton, 67, and his wife Irene, 65, attended the rally. They both feel that Trump has a good chance to win the Ohio delegates on Tuesday.

“(Trump) just needs to keep saying the same message,” Jim said. “We’re so tired of the establishment.”

Irene agreed with her husband when he said, “ We’re tired of the way things are going and we want our grand-kids to grow up in the same America we did.”

An 11-year-old girl wearing a Trump hat and carrying a Trump rally sign was with her mother at the event. Olivia Cate is home schooled by her mother Lisa Cate. Both are opposed to the Common Core initiatives.

“He (Trump) needs to give them a reason to not make her (Clinton) president just because she is a woman,” Olivia said.

Not all attendees at the rally were there to support Trump. Katherine Delfeld, 23, of Cleveland Taylor Blevin, 23, of Texas and Princess Cao, 23, also from Texas were here as spectators. All three thought the writing was on the wall for Clinton to win the presidency.

“You have to be realistic when you can win,” Delfeld said.

Trump hit the stage around 2 p.m. to cheers from his supporters.

“People are fed up with what’s going on,” Trump said. “They’re fed up with the stupidity in Washington.”

Trump spoke about on economics, immigration and the Mexican border. He encouraged the crowd on asking, “We are going to have a wall, a real wall folks. And who’s going to pay for it? Who is going to pay for the wall?”

Later on in his speech he talked about how he may have trouble building the wall.

“These stupid politicians say they won’t allow you to build a wall,” Trump said. “I will get it built so fast your head will spin.”

Protesters intermittently interrupted the rally. Trump took to calling the protesters “Bernie’s people” and would ask that they be removed.

“Get the Bernie person out of here,” Trump said. He called the protesters violent and said that his supporters were non-violent.

Ohio is Kasich country and Trump took to calling him out on his views on free trade.

“Your governor, when he was a congressman, voted for NAFTA,” Trump said after espousing smart free trade. He told the crowd that he’ll be able to bring jobs back and redevelop the middle class.

“We have trade deficits with nearly every country we do business with,” he said. “Any direction I can point to we’re losing jobs, we’re not going to let it happen anymore.”

Trump called for a unity of the Republican Party and tried to make himself stand out from the other GOP candidates.

“The truth is that we have to bring our party together,” he said. “We need that kind of thinking for your country. We’re like the whipping post for everybody. They (other GOP candidates) want to cut social security. I’m going to bring our jobs back and I’m the only one that’s not cutting it (social security).”

Contact Karl Schneider at [email protected].