Chants of “four more years” greeted President Trump as he emerged from Air Force One at the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport on Tuesday evening, just days after declaring himself cured of covid-19.

The enthusiastic crowd, estimated at anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 strong, was still streaming into the airport grounds at 7:30 when Trump arrived and launched into a tirade against former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris.

“Biden is the single-worst candidate in the history of presidential politics,” Trump said. “If he wins, the radical left will be running the country.”

He dismissed Harris as “farther left than Nancy Pelosi.”

“If Biden wins, China wins, it’s that simple. … He abused you. He crushed your dreams. He outsources your jobs to China and around the world. … And we brought back steel,” Trump told the cheering crowd.

He went on to attack Biden for refusing to answer questions about whether he would add seats to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“He said the voters don’t deserve to know. You know what I did, I gave you a list. There were 45 people on that list, and every one of them is a star,” Trump said.

“If they win, the Democrats will pack the Supreme Court with leftist judges. You can forget about your guns,” Trump warned, as the crowd chanted “Fill that seat.”

#TrumpJohnstown Supporters from across the state continued to stream into Tuesday’s Johnstown rally as night fell. pic.twitter.com/SjEdxenIoW

— Debra Erdley (@deberdley_trib) October 14, 2020

Supporters began lining up at the airport 10 hours in advance of the campaign rally scheduled to being at 7 p.m.

At the nearby Galleria Mall, where many shops are closed, dozens of vendors gathered in the parking lot hawking Trump regalia, ranging from T-shirts and caps to flags and buttons.

Back at the airport, a pickup bearing Biden flags, an effigy of the president and the message “215,000 dead, covid-19” circled the facility repeatedly.

Trump, however, insisted his actions saved 2 million lives.

“I love your pain because I feel your pain, and we will beat this virus together,” he said. He promised 100 million vaccine doses by year’s end.

While many at Tuesday’s rally said they were from Johnstown and surrounding area, others traveled across Pennsylvania.

Tom Dietrich, a retired corrections officer from Erie, was among those who have followed the president to rallies across the state this year. He said he had been to Trump rallies in Erie and near Pittsburgh and was anxious to show his support again in Johnstown.

Others said they traveled from York, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh to hear Trump yet again.

Biden, who frames the election as a choice between Park Avenue and small-town America, repeated that claim Tuesday.

“Over the last four years, President Trump has only looked out for big corporations and the super wealthy like those on Park Avenue, and has failed to protect Pennsylvanians from the health and economic impacts of the covid-19 pandemic,” Biden said. “As president, I will fight for the workers and families in Johnstown who are tired of President Trump’s broken promises and failed leadership. I will bring good-paying union jobs to communities like Johnstown, raise wages and create economic opportunity for all Pennsylvanians.”

Trump’s visit to the storied steel town in the Pennsylvania mountains marked the second time a presidential candidate has held a rally in the city of 20,000 in as many weeks.

Biden greeted supporters at the Johnstown train station the night of Sept. 30 after stops in Pittsburgh and Westmoreland County.

Those rallies underscore the battle for Pennsylvania and its 20 Electoral College votes, which Trump won by 44,000 votes out of more than 6 million cast in 2016. Although Trump lost in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, his margins in rural Pennsylvania offset those loses.

Like Westmoreland, Cambria County supported Trump in 2016. He carried the county by 37 points even though Democrats then held a significant registration edge there.

That edge recently flipped, with the GOP now holding a slight lead in registration.

Joseph Melusky, a political scientist at nearby St. Francis University in Loretto, said Trump’s base is ardent in the region once rich in coal mines and steel mills.

“They see someone who is a fighter. What he’s fighting for objectively is less important than that he’s fighting,” Melusky said. “ ‘Make America Great Again’ means different things to different people. In the case of Cambria County, you can understand a yearning for the way things were.”

Matt Leamer of Hastings, a coal miner at the Enlow Fork Mine in Greene County, sported a Border Wall T-shirt at the rally. The tall, burly miner said he has supported the president who has repeatedly spoken out for coal country, from day one.

“I’m for less government regulation,” Leamer said. “I like his whole platform.”

Although Trump campaign signs are visible in lawns on back roads and streets in Johnstown and communities across the region, Biden supporters quietly have asserted their presence.

In nearby Ebensburg, Helen Whiteford, chair of the Cambria County Democratic Committee, said a group of local Biden supporters bought a billboard proclaiming “Ebensburg for Biden.”

“People were calling the police and borough council saying the sign didn’t speak for them,” Whiteford said. “But the borough didn’t pay for it, local people raised money on their own.”

Back at the airport, Trump warned of “radical left anarchists” ready to take over America and what he referred to as Biden’s “war on police.”

He spoke of an America on the rebound, saying “jobs are coming back.”

America, he promised, will be the first country to land a woman on the moon and a man on Mars.

“Biden will surrender our jobs to China,” Trump said. “China will own the United States.”

“If you vote for me, prosperity will surge. Normal life will return,” he promised.

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