WATCH LIVE: Former President Donald Trump speaks at Aurora rally, saying Democrats “are ruining your state”

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally began late Friday morning in northern Aurora, at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center. Colorado officials, candidates and other figures were among the early speakers, and Trump is scheduled to take the stage around 1 p.m. The Denver Post will provide a livestream of his remarks on this page.

This story will be updated throughout the day.

1:45 p.m. update: Trump walks on stage to applause, waving Trump-Vance signs and chants of “USA!”, soundtracked by Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the U.S.A.” His entrance came a short time after his adviser Stephen Miller spoke about the need to stem migration and deport immigrants in the country illegally — aligning with the theme of this rally.

“What the hell is happening with our country? What are they doing?” Trump says in his opening remarks. “What are they doing to Colorado? They are ruining your state. Ruining your state.”

As of 1:15 p.m., the last of the Trump supporters planning to attend the rally still waited in a line that ended on East 64th Avenue, across from North Kirk Street — much shorter than the line was an hour earlier. Some attendees who didn’t make it into the building were resigning themselves to watching the rally on a screen.

When Trump took the stage, they cheered, whistled and sung along to Greenwood’s song.

12:49 p.m. update: The program is on pause as the crowd waits for Trump’s arrival at the Gaylord Rockies.

Outside the venue this afternoon, Dena McClung stood among a group of Harris-Walz campaign supporters at the corner of East 64th Avenue and Gaylord Rockies Boulevard. Four police officers were on hand nearby as interactions between Trump and Harris supporters have hit intermittent boiling points.

One man, holding a Trump flag, yelled homophobic slurs at the counter-protesters.

McClung has lived in Aurora for 29 years. She decided to come out several days ago with her roommate to protest, she said, observing: “It is a much bigger turnout than I expected it to be. Some of them (Trump supporters) — they don’t really say anything. Some of them are a little bit friendly. But honestly, a lot of them are hostile.”

Ahead of the election, she said, “I’m really hopeful that we have enough people who are not like this to sway it, so that Kamala Harris will win.”

12:30 p.m. update: Outside the Gaylord, David Leach, 18, was among vendors selling items to attendees. He drove to Denver from Salida in the central mountains on Friday morning, coming to sell Trump flags through his business, Fly Your Own Flag LLC.

“I’ve never seen so many people in my life,” he said as he held a flag picturing Trump in the moments after the assassination attempt on him at a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Leach said he’s the son of two liberals and used to identify as liberal, too. He said “a lot” of his friends aren’t politically active yet. “There’s a lot of shaming if you’re interested in Trump,” he said. “I’ve definitely gotten a lot of people yelling at me while I’m selling flags.”

12:25 p.m. update: Cindy Romero, whose door camera captured video of armed men in her Aurora apartment hallway — video that went viral in the late summer — said on stage that she was “run out of our home after four years” by gunshots, crime and destruction.

“We were overrun. The police were overwhelmed,” she said. Romero spoke after Danielle Jurinsky, an Aurora city councilwoman who elevated the gang-takeover claims in recent months.

Read more about those claims here. The Denver Post also has reported on problems with management of several apartment complexes that predated the arrival of Venezuelan migrants and problems with a gang’s activity.

12:07 p.m. update: As of just before noon, the line of hopefuls trying to enter the rally wound its way down from the Gaylord Rockies entrance to East 64th Avenue — and then down Lisbon Street, a queue that measured a mile or more in length.

At the corner of Lisbon and 64th Avenue, Kim West said, when asked if she was surprised by the massive turnout for the rally in Colorado: “I am. I don’t know why I’m surprised.” But she added that it’s probably because she lives in Denver, where “you have a couple (Trump supporters) here and there.”

Inside, a standing crowd filled up half the ballroom and spilled around the press pen in the center of the room. Behind the media area, another group sat on the floor, watching a giant screen of the stage, as a Colorado Springs mom led the crowd in a “Polis sucks” chant, referring to Gov. Jared Polis.

9News reported that Trump’s plane has landed at Denver International Airport nearby.

11:49 a.m. update: U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert asked the crowd if they were ready “to position yourself for the good fight of faith?”

Flanked by two TV screens displaying her speech, Boebert cracked jokes about Hunter Biden “scurrying out of a laptop repair shop” and said “our backyards are looking like ‘Narcos,’ ” a reference to the Netflix show about Colombian drug cartels. She also called out 9News anchor Kyle Clark, which sparked a wave of boos from the crowd.

She referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Cacklin’ Kamala” and said undocumented immigrants should be deported.

11:42 a.m. update: State Rep. Gabe Evans, who’s running a tight race in the 8th Congressional District in the north Denver suburbs, spoke to the crowd.

“We are going to flip this seat,” Evans said; the 8th District is currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo. “And we can make sure that Donald Trump has a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.”

Evans was followed by Jeff Crank, the likely favored candidate for the 5th Congressional District, which covers most of El Paso County. Crank blasted the “failed policies of Joe Biden, an economy that makes it harder for working class Americans to get by.”

When he called Colorado a “sanctuary state,” the crowd booed. “Unfortunately,” Crank said, “it’s a sanctuary for crime and drugs, and we need to take back Colorado.”

11:39 a.m. update: Aron Weinstock, who lives in Littleton, was excited about the rally’s turnout as he waited to enter the Gaylord building.

“In the city, you’re there by yourself,” he said. “You come to a rally like this and you see how many actually do support (Trump).”

Weinstock is a Colorado native and said he wished it was more of a red state. “Everything that’s going on in our country right now is because of the Democratic side of government,” he said. “The Democratic Party is full of lies.”

11:34 update: Luke Bollwerk, an Aurora resident, stood in line for the rally with a sign that read: “Aurora is a shining light and a beautiful place to live.” He said he was trying to rebut the rumors voiced about Aurora in recent weeks.

“Trump has been talking about (Aurora) being a war zone, and that’s not the city I woke up in,” Bollwerk said. “That hurts us.”

He plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election and said he would bring the sign into the Trump rally if he was allowed.

11:26 a.m. update: The rally’s program began shortly after 11 a.m., with Colorado Republican Party chair Dave Williams taking the stage. On either side of the stage were large mugshots of suspected gang members and two signs advocating for deportation and reading, “End migrant crime.”

People were still filing into the Gaylord’s 10,000-capacity ballroom as Williams was followed by a pastor and John “Tig” Tiegen, who survived the 2012 Benghazi terror attack on two U.S. government sites in Libya. He led the room in the Pledge of Allegiance.

11:24 a.m. update: Two hours before the rally began Friday morning, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and four members of Colorado’s U.S. congressional delegation spoke at a brewery in Aurora and criticized what Sen. Michael Bennett described as Trump’s decision to visit the city and “demonize immigrants, lie and to serve his own political purposes.”

The event was a short drive from the Edge of Lowry apartments, the troubled and dilapidated complex that drew national attention — including from Trump — amid reports that the buildings had been overrun by a Venezuelan gang. U.S. Sen John Hickenlooper and U.S. Reps. Jason Crow and Diana DeGette also spoke at Cheluna Brewing at the Stanley Marketplace.

Crow said he wanted to “stand in solidarity, to send a very strong message about what this community really is, what we really mean and what we really represent.”

“Donald Trump invited himself to tell lies, to twist and distort (the apartment issues) for his own terrible purposes,” Crow added. “We will not tolerate it.”

10:53 a.m. update: Police have established a heavy presence around the Gaylord Rockies. A small group of four people stood near Jericho Street and Gaylord Rockies Boulevard, holding signs and a flag supporting the Democrats’ Harris-Walz campaign. But a sea of Trump supporters crowded the sidewalk leading to the resort, chanting and wearing Trump’s trademark red “Make America Great Again” hats.

Original reporting: Former President Donald Trump is coming to Aurora on Friday, and supporters began lining up outside the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center before dawn, hours before his really is set to begin.

Roads near the venue were experiencing heavy traffic mid-morning, especially on East 64th Avenue and on Peña Boulevard, the primary access route to Denver International Airport. Travelers should also expect some delays in coming hours as police make accommodations for Trump’s motorcade between DIA and the Gaylord. (Tip for travelers heading to DIA: Take E-470, a toll road, to access Peña from the north or south. Or take RTD’s A-Line train to bypass roads.)

Doors were expected to open at 9 a.m, and Trump’s remarks are set to begin at 1 p.m., barring any delays.