LITITZ — In one of his final rallies in the presidential election’s most critical battleground, former President Donald Trump went off-script about unproven voter fraud in the state and called the Party Democrat from “demonic” and “cheater”.

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In what seems to be a neck-and-neck race in the stateTrump spent his 22nd visit of the year here, ignoring the teleprompter and vamping with a crowd of worshipers gathered on a cold, sunny Sunday morning. The visit came as polls three days before Election Day predicted a photo finish in Pennsylvania. But Trump’s closing speech included just a brief mention of his promise to “fix” what the Democrats had “broken,” and otherwise played out like a long conscience-stricken tirade.

“When they say he gave a long, rambling speech, say ‘that was brilliant,'” Trump told the crowd as his remarks reached the 90-minute mark.

If there was a theme in Trump’s remarks, it was a focus on false claims of voter fraud in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. On stage, he inaccurately described a situation in Lancaster County in which county officials are investigating a batch of 2,500 records applications that included some potentially fraudulent applications. Trump said all 2,500 ballots were “written by the same hand.”

Trump contradicted his own party’s push to get Republicans to vote by mail by saying, “we should have one-day voting and paper ballots.”

He lamented county officials “extending the hours” of voting, when his own party successfully sued to extend the window for voters to request an absentee ballot in Bucks County.

“There’s so much going on in Pennsylvania. We’re in court all the time,” Trump said.

He has repeatedly criticized the country’s election administration system. despite the absence of widespread evidence of electoral fraud. He said voting machines should “never be used” and claimed it was unclear how many votes he received in 2020, while falsely stating he won Pennsylvania.

“If nothing comes of this, you better adopt a new system,” he said.

The stage was set for Trump to contrast Vice President Kamala Harris’ record in the Biden administration with his own. But while the podium read “Trump will fix it” and attendees held signs saying “Kamala broke it, Trump will fix it,” her speech focused very little on the economy or political differences .

Instead, Trump rattled off a list of grievances in what was at times a nostalgic reflection on his nine years of running for office.

“For the next election, I will not participate in it,” Trump said. At one point he seemed to recognize that he could be defeated. “It’s bad. And it can never be fixed because we’ll never get the right people in because of what they’re doing with elections.

The day began with a series of speakers, including race car driver Danica Patrick, former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The former president is about nine points behind women in the state, according to a report. A Philadelphia Inquirer/New York Times/Siena College poll released Sunday.

An hour and fifteen minutes into his speech (for which he arrived an hour late), people had started leaving Lancaster Airport. Trump hurled insults at his political enemies. He called U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) “ugly,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “crazy,” and recalled 2016, calling Hillary Clinton “crooked.” He called Chinese President Xi Jingping “brilliant” (but also “not a very good person”).

For nearly a decade, Trump has vilified the press, but he went even further Sunday by assessing the bulletproof glass around him.

“To catch me, someone would have to film the fake news and that doesn’t bother me that much,” he said, pointing to around 100 media journalists and photographers standing directly in front of him.

That prompted a clarifying statement from Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung, who said the former president’s comment “has nothing to do with the media being harmed.” but rather “with threats against him that were motivated by Democrats’ dangerous rhetoric.”

“In fact,” Cheung continued, “President Trump was saying that the media was in danger, in the sense that they were protecting him and, therefore, were themselves in great danger and should also have had a protective shield in glass.”

Jeff Bartos, a former Republican Senate candidate from Lower Merion who fought for Trump, said Trump’s off-script style is often what people come to see.

“People who go out in the thousands in cold weather take it seriously, but not literally,” Bartos said. “I think too many people in the media maybe take it too literally.”

Robert Chirico, 56, who lives near Stroudsburg and works in IT, called the election stakes enormous. “I feel like everything is at stake.”

“You know, you go to the grocery store, everything costs a lot more,” Chirico said. “People are really, really suffering… The border, immigration, security, things are really bad. I’ve never seen him so bad. I worry about my children, my grandchildren.

Jen Coppello, 50, of Morgantown, voted for Trump in the last two presidential elections.

She said she didn’t know why Trump was losing the women’s vote in the state because she thought he thought his policies were helping women.

“He cares about all genders,” she said. “Or both sexes – not all.”