"Well, we're not going to have this too much longer, you know? We're winding down, we're winding down."
These were Donald Trump's opening remarks at a rally in the crucial swing state of Michigan on Friday.
"We're going to miss these rallies aren't we, huh? But they'll be even better rallies, in a different form, I think."
I was one of the people he was talking to that afternoon.
ABC's Insiders host David Speers and I queued with thousands of Trump supporters to get a seat inside the hall of Macomb Community College, in the suburbs of Detroit.
This was the first section of Trump's speech. For a few minutes he lamented the end of the campaign, and the loss of this medium of connecting with his adoring fans.
For many, this was their first time seeing their political hero, and he was beginning his speech by bidding farewell.
He then spent some time talking about his ability to draw bigger crowds than any other political figure.
"We never have an empty seat and nobody leaves early," he told the crowd.
In fact, 25 minutes into his speech, people did begin to leave early. Not many, but a steady stream.
Probably at a rate of around 10 people per minute, folks in full MAGA regalia filed through the exit doors.
By this stage I had been sitting next to David on an uncomfortable bleacher bench for two hours.
During those two hours, a dozen or so other local Republican figures had spoken.
Each came out with a carefully crafted message.
"The route to the White House goes through Macomb County!" pronounced one local congresswoman, to cheers from the crowd.
Other speakers begged the crowd to go out and vote early, and then call 10 people and get them to go out and vote early as well.
All of their speeches were short and sharp, and all of them hit their applause lines hard. The crowd instinctively knew when to chant the campaign's catch phrases.
"Drill, baby, drill!"
"Fight! Fight! Fight!"
"Too big to rig!"
A Black preacher from nearby Dearborn county had the crowd on their feet cheering so loud I genuinely couldn't hear what he was saying.
The Republican politicians and guest speakers knew they had a job to do. Get the crowd excited, give the crowd incentive to go out and vote, and encourage others to do the same.
Tell the crowd that they, Macomb County residents, have a chance to make a big difference in the election outcome.
That last part is only half-true. Macomb County, in the northern suburbs of Detroit, is exactly where Donald Trump needs to gain votes to have any chance of winning Michigan.
Much of the crowd wasn't from Macomb County — or at least, the ones I spoke to weren't.
They were from the outer fringe of Detroit, or from smaller cities in rural and regional Michigan.
Some of them were from Ohio, where Trump hasn't campaigned at all this election cycle. Crossing state lines was their only chance to see him.
In other words, they were from areas where if you were to call 10 friends and encourage them to vote Republican, they'd likely tell you that they already were.
Detroit, as a city, is predominantly Black. But the folks at the rally were overwhelmingly white — at least 90 per cent of them, by my estimate.
When Trump emerged, there was raucous applause, cheering and whistling, but then as he drifted off prompter and told anecdotes about his time in the White House, or his experiences on the campaign trail, there were long periods where the crowd seemed to lose interest.
People looked at their phones, muttered to each other, and waited for the next catchphrase they could stand and applaud.
At one point, Trump feigned sympathy for Joe Biden, saying the sitting president was betrayed by his party when they told him to make way for Kamala Harris to run for the White House in July.
"Who cares?" came a shout from the crowd.
Trump laughed.
"I guess he happens to be right, who cares?" he said, pointing at the heckler.
"Thank you for adding so much spice!" Trump added.
But by the time Trump finished speaking — 1 hour and 45 minutes after he started, large sections of the auditorium were empty.
