The churches are not being treated with respect by a lot of the Democrat governors," the President claimed.

Biden's capacity to counter Trump's chosen image as the voice of the jobless — by highlighting, for instance, his favors to corporations in the GOP tax cut bill and in stimulus funding -- could turn into a critical passage of the election.

"For the last three years, Donald Trump has turned his back on Michigan's working families.

Around a quarter of Michigan's workers have lost their jobs, according to new employment figures, showing that this debate could be pivotal in a state where Trump pulled off a narrow win over Hillary Clinton four years ago.

And the tactics that the President unveiled on Thursday will slot into his wider campaign to win the states that might hold the destiny of the White House, including Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Trump also shows his liabilities

Yet Trump's fervent campaigning on Thursday also hinted at his vulnerabilities in a pivotal state that has moved against Republicans since his shock 2016 victory.

In many ways, Trump is playing catchup since satisfaction with his performance in the state trails public approval of the job being done by Michigan's Democratic Gov.

And 58% of people in the state had a favorable impression of the Democratic governor, compared to 44% who had a favorable impression of the President.

In the 2018 midterm elections Michigan was a test case for how suburban and female voters turned against a President whose strength at framing economic themes is often obscured by his chaotic and vengeful personal leadership style.

Trump falsely claimed Wednesday that Michigan's efforts to help its citizens vote by mail in November, in a bid to check a resurgence of the virus, will trigger massive voter fraud.

And they threaten to distract from the purity of Trump's economic message in what is in many ways an unnecessary controversy.

The President's trip also highlighted his bet that his political base — stoked by his cultural feuds with Washington elites -- will deliver an even more famous victory than in 2016.

Trump made sure he was pictured addressing executives during a factory tour without a mask, cementing his chosen image as an unbowed warrior President standing with supporters who chafe against social distancing as an infringement on freedoms.

"Built Trump tough," the President declared, appropriating Ford's advertising slogan for his own purposes.

Calling the bluff of local Democratic officials, he insisted he wore a mask away from the cameras and gave himself political cover by blaming the media for a kerfuffle he whipped up himself by defying his own government's advice on masks.

"I had one on before," he said.

As we get closer to the election, certainly there is potential for the way people feel now, and support for her, to erode."

Trump's assaults on Whitmer appeared actually to have elevated her and made her a national political figure: she's been touted by many pundits for a spot on Biden's ticket.

The governor's 2018 victory was also seen as a repudiation of Trump's style and behavior, leading to the impression that a Democrat who did not take the state for granted, as Clinton did in 2016, might have beaten Trump and retained the White House for Democrats at the same time.

Trump's decision to go after a popular Democratic governor — as he did last week in Pennsylvania with Tom Wolf -- is in some ways a sign of the President's weakness in that he needs to destroy and discredit opponents and cannot just rely on the strength of his own record to win reelection.

An incumbent's advantage

Trump's few hours in Michigan also underscored his utter lack of guilt in politicizing and misrepresenting the reality of the worst domestic crisis to confront the US since World War II.

The event was designed to highlight Ford's role in repurposing its production lines to build ventilators and protective medical equipment for medical workers.