The scene at the airport in Duluth, Minn., on Wednesday night was jubilant and carefree, despite the 40-degree temperatures, pelting rain and blustery wind blowing toward Lake Superior. A 3,000-person audience
Two days later, the Minnesotans who were there are replaying the event in their heads with one new and gut-wrenching piece of information: Mr. Trump is infected with the coronavirus.
The people who attended the rally in Duluth, many wearing the red-and-black plaid that is an unofficial uniform of the logging industry, made up the last crowd of that scale to see Mr. Trump before the coronavirus diagnosis that shocked the world early Friday morning. They are feeling the reverberations in Minnesota, where Mr. Trump had attended a private fund-raiser near the Twin Cities, followed by the large rally in Duluth, before heading back to Washington.
In the front row of the event in Duluth, Cal Warwas, 44, an employee at a Minnesota mine, watched Mr. Trump with a group of friends. Mr. Trump seemed happy to be there, he recalled, unbothered by the cold temperatures in his navy overcoat, even as Mr. Warwas — a hardy resident of the state’s northern Iron Range — felt his own teeth chattering.
