WATCH LIVE: Trump hosts campaign rally in Tempe, Arizona

DULUTH, Ga. (AP) — Donald Trump implored his supporters at a rally in Georgia to vote for him — with early voting or in person on Election Day — in a state that will be crucial in the presidential election.

Trump is scheduled to speak in Tempe, Arizona at 5:00 p.m. EDT. Watch it live in our player above.

“Just vote — however you want to do it,” Trump said Wednesday at the event organized by conservative provocateur Charlie Kirk and the group he founded.

WATCH LIVE: Bruce Springsteen accompanies Harris and Obama at the election rally in Atlanta

But the rest of the former president’s speech and the lineup that preceded it presented the 2024 presidential election in stark terms. The Republican candidate insulted Democrat Kamala Harris, while Kirk and other speakers used religious references and cast the vice president and her Democratic Party as called evil.

Democrats “stand for everything God hates,” Kirk said, calling the election between Trump and Harris “a spiritual battle.”

“This is a Christian state. “I hope it stays that way,” Kirk said to the approximately 10,000 Georgians who at one point joined Kirk in a deafening chant: “Christ is King!” Christ is King!”

Harris, who is a Baptist, used a CNN town hall in Philadelphia to call Trump a fascist, highlighting the nation’s polarized attitudes less than two weeks before the Nov. 5 election.

Trump will also hold a rally in Las Vegas at 10 p.m. EDT. Watch it in the player below.

Trump’s campaign’s strategy of encouraging his supporters to consider every method of voting represents a departure from when he blamed mail-in ballots for his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden; The number of early voters has skyrocketed this year. More than 1.9 million voters cast their ballots early in Georgia, where Trump lost to Biden by just 11,779 votes four years ago. Voters across the country have cast a total of over 23 million pre-cast ballots in the 2024 general election. That broke records in several states, in part because Republicans favor Trump-style early voting.

But as the contest enters its final days, allies like Kirk are looking for people who lean toward Trump but may sit out the election when it comes to voting.

“You need to go to every single person you know and say, ‘Are you voting for Trump?'” Kirk told the crowd.

Kirk, 31, is playing a prominent role in this year’s election. He is using his online presence and the organization he founded, Turning Point Action, to make himself one of the country’s best-known conservatives and a central part of Trump’s operations. The former president is placing particular emphasis on courting younger men, the “bro vote,” and is trying to reach them through podcasts, social media and influencers like Kirk.

REGARD: What John Kelly said about Trump’s praise of Hitler and fascist tendencies

The rally at Gas South Arena in Duluth was filled with Turning Point’s signature pyrotechnics. Trump used it to showcase three figures who represent the populist coalition he is trying to put together: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who ran his own presidential campaign this year before endorsing Trump; former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat who announced this week that she was joining the Republican Party; and Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News commentator who has attracted millions of followers with his bold social media presence. He added country singer Jason Aldean, whose single “Try That in a Small Town” was a response to urban protests.

Carlson galvanized the crowd by assuring them that liberals and political elites were the “bizarre minority” in U.S. politics, while Trump’s “Make America Great Again” supporters were a “soft, tolerant” movement. Carlson referred to Trump as America’s “Daddy” and said a Trump victory over Harris would mean “Daddy’s home!” And he’s angry!” – and at the same time points “a big middle finger” at “the worst people in the English-speaking world”.

Later that evening, as Trump spoke, some in the crowd shouted, “Dad is home!”

Wednesday’s rally was strategically held in a part of metro Atlanta where Trump underperformed in his re-election campaign four years ago. Kirk and Trump are also scheduled to appear at a rally in Las Vegas on Thursday evening.

Trump praised Kirk for “working so hard” at the rally and other campaign efforts.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump made his own pitch to conservative Christian voters at a faith-based town hall at a church in Zebulon, about 50 miles south of Atlanta. He made the dubious claim that Christians do not vote in large numbers.

“If you have faith, if you believe in God, that’s a huge advantage over people who don’t have it,” he said, arguing that Christian voters were motivated in his favor this year.

At the end of the so-called “Believers and Votes” event, Trump went outside to address a packed crowd. Several hundred people gathered in the church parking lot, chanting “USA!”

Beyond its work in Georgia, Kirk’s Turning Point is campaigning with state and local Republican officials in Arizona, Wisconsin and elsewhere. Critics question the group’s claims and its use of an app that offers minimal safeguards to protect voters’ personal information. In a recording of a meeting obtained by The Associated Press, a group activist said: “We are now an official arm of the Trump campaign.”

Earlier this week, Kirk and Vivek Ramaswamy took the stage in downtown Atlanta, a decidedly liberal environment where conservatives could hold court with college students. The event was part of Kirk’s “You’re Being Brainwashed Tour,” which stops at college campuses in swing states. More than the fieldwork, the “Brainwashed” tour has become perhaps his most visible presence in the final months of the campaign.

Within minutes, Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur seeking the Republican presidential nomination this year, and Kirk duked it out with Georgia State University students over their decisions in the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Trump and his aides argue that his populist nationalism appeals to younger voters frustrated by an inflationary economy and rising real estate prices.

“I’m definitely voting for Trump because he reflects my values ​​as a conservative and a Christian better than Ms. Harris,” said 25-year-old student Jean Pierre.

Kirk repeated Trump’s false narrative that Harris was solely responsible for immigration policy. He reinforced the lie that 325,000 children were “lost” at the border during Biden’s term.

Kirk also defended the Trump supporters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as Congress was meeting to certify Biden’s election.

Ashli ​​Babbitt, who was shot by a Capitol Police officer inside the building, was unarmed, Kirk said. He asked rhetorically whether the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man killed by a white Minneapolis police officer in 2020, was acceptable. This drew ridicule and more than a few curse words.

Kirk, who is white, continued: “Black people in America are being put last, which seems to have been a theme for the last 60 years that Democrats have governed.”

The crowd, reflecting the racial and ethnic diversity of Georgia State’s enrollment, was largely unresponsive. Turning Point employees and local conservatives cheered.

Pierre praised Kirk for his attempt to organize on liberal-leaning campuses. Still, he seemed significantly outnumbered by the crowd of students who were there to push back the host or simply watch the combative exchange.

Jason Evans and Tyler Hill appeared in “White Dudes for Harris” costumes.

Hill said, “I’m just here for the show.”

Associated Press writer Stephen Groves in Washington contributed to this report.