Donald Trump promises to end 'war' on energy, miners in Roanoke rally

Through the rest of his 30-minute speech, Trump raced through a series of topics that included college debt, opioid abuse, over-regulating the energy industry and building a border wall between the United States and Mexico.

“Here in Virginia, we’re going to end the war on American energy and on the miners,” Trump said.

Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine want to shut down the shale and natural gas industries, Trump said in his last public appearance before the first presidential debate on Monday.

Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, has come out in favor of renewable energies. She acknowledged the shift to clean energy will leave some coal miners without jobs, but she said she hopes to find new career opportunities for those workers.

Trump said Clinton’s regulatory agenda will drive up energy prices across the state and cost the U.S. economy $5 trillion, a figure he compared with tax increases her running mate proposed when he was Virginia’s governor. The Republican presidential nominee was referring to Kaine’s unsuccessful proposal to raise some car taxes, fees and ticket fines to raise an additional $1 billion a year for transportation.

Since Kaine proposed the tax hike during his first year as governor, Trump and critics of the plan referred to it as a $4 billion tax hike.

Clinton made the wrong choice for her running mate, Trump said.

Trump made a similar argument when he spoke at the Hotel Roanoke in July. At the time, the Clinton campaign said Virginia was rated as the best state for business, best-managed state during Kaine’s tenure in the governor’s office.

“You know, he’s not very popular,” Trump said on Saturday. ”He won his election by a very, very close margin.”

Kaine, the underdog in the race, won his gubernatorial election with about 52 percent of the vote. Former state attorney general Jerry Kilgore garnered 46 percent of the vote.

Trump is closing in on Clinton in Virginia polls. Most state polls had Clinton up by double-digit numbers last month. Now, most polls show her leading by single-digit numbers, and a Real Clear Politics average of five Virginia polls has Clinton ahead by 6 percentage points.

“We’re just about tied in Virginia,” Trump said.

Trump also repeated his claim that if elected, he will build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and make Mexico pay. Mexican leaders have said they won’t pay for the wall.

The wall, intended to keep undocumented immigrants out of America, also would stop the spread of illegal drugs, specifically opioids, across the border, Trump said.

“I will stop the drug inflow from our borders, believe me,” Trump said. “These terrible drugs come over the border and make their way into our urban and rural communities and into our suburbs.”

Trump also hit on college affordability, an issue Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of Hillary Clinton, campaigned on at Roanoke College last week. Trump said he would work with Congress to ensure public universities don’t get federal benefits and tax breaks unless the schools prioritize making college affordable for their students.

Chelsea Clinton, who made stops in Roanoke and Salem last week to campaign for her mother, also championed the college affordability issue by outlining the Democratic candidate’s New College Compact to reduce college debt and make college free for families earning less than $125,000 a year.

Throughout his speech, Trump emphasized he would fight for the nation’s underdogs, those who were forgotten or those who are down on their luck.

He talked about recent visits to see flood damage in Louisiana and to Flint, Mich., to talk with residents about their water supply.

“It used to be where, the cars were made in Flint and you couldn’t drink the water in Mexico,” he said. “Today, the cars are made in Mexico and you can’t drink the water in Flint, Michigan.”

Trump’s Virginia campaign chairman, Corey Stewart, said he thinks Roanoke is the only city the Republican candidate has visited on campaign stops twice in two months.

“It’s the epicenter of Trump’s strength in Virginia, and it’s really where we’ve got to boost turnout,” Stewart said.

In recent weeks, Trump has focused on campaigning in more rural areas of swing states. In Virginia, that means the Trump campaign is converging its energy in the Western part of the state as opposed to most of Northern Virginia, which is predicted to favor Clinton.

Former Democratic state Senate candidate Mike Hamlar joined members of the Democratic Party of Virginia and other protesters near the Trump rally on Saturday.

Hamlar, who unsuccessfully ran against Sen. David R. Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County, said Trump’s return to Roanoke is a sign Trump’s campaign is worried about getting enough Virginia votes to earn the state’s 13 electoral votes.

“I see this as ‘I’m nervous about Virginia and I’m nervous about Southwest Virginia so I need to come back,’ ” he said.

As the race in Virginia tightens, Trump plans to be back in Virginia every week until the election, Stewart said.

Local Republicans who spoke before Trump on Saturday also encouraged voters to choose their local Republicans when they hit the voting booths in November. U.S. Reps. Bob Goodlatte, R-6th, and Morgan Griffith, R-9th, spoke at the rally. Both incumbents face Democratic challengers in November.