High praise from The King.
In case you’ve been lucky enough to escape all of the campaign ads, there’s an election coming up in a couple weeks, with Republicans and Democrats fighting for control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term.
That means the president is out hitting the campaign trail for his party’s candidates, and he’s bringing along some friends to help him out.
Over the past few weeks, Trump has held rallies in states like Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Michigan, all of which have big elections for US Senate coming up. (The election in Tennessee probably won’t be close, but the others are pretty tight right now and are ultimately going to depend on voter turnout).
And several big names have joined him on the campaign trail, including former NFL coach Jon Gruden, Kid Rock, boxing legend Floyd Mayweather, and former Georgia running back Todd Gurley. Last night in North Carolina though, he decided to bring out The King.
If you’re looking for a big name in North Carolina, it doesn’t get much bigger than NASCAR legend Richard Petty. He’s a 7-time champion, one of the biggest names in the history of the sport, and a longtime supporter of President Trump. So it only made sense that the president would bring him along as he campaigned for Republican nominee for Senate, Michael Whatley.
Ahead of the rally, Petty was seen getting off Air Force One with the president, as Trump directed the media’s attention to the NASCAR legend:
And during the rally, Trump invited Petty on stage with some high praise for the NASCAR legend:
“We have a legend here, a man that – should I call him up? The great Richard Petty? The King?
He just turned a certain age, I’ll tell you, he’s unbelievable. I said, ‘Did you win 44 races?’ He said, ‘No I won 201’ or something. How do you win 200 races? But this is a real legend. Come on up.”
Petty then took the mic, and delivered his stump speech in – what else – racing terms:
“I’m going to look at all this stuff a little bit from the racing standpoint. He’s a big racing fan, and I appreciate that. But we’re in a big race here, guys.
I’m going to look him as the driver. This is the best driver we’ve ever had. So what we’ve got to do is you all have got to pick out the best pit crew for him. So we got to have the best pit crew. And that’s what all this is about.
Let’s get out and get the very best pit crew we can for the best driver in the world.
So if we do that, if we can do that, then he’s a winner. Pit crew is a winner. We’re all winners all over the world. Thank you guys.”
Of course it’s not the first time Petty has campaigned for Trump: Back in 2024, the lifelong Republican wasn’t shy about who he was voting for.
“You’re either an American or a Democrat.”
And when Trump attended the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the King joined him in his suite:
If you’re going to bring out the big guns in North Carolina, Richard Petty is a pretty good one to have on your team.
