Boothbay resident Dawn Gilbert had a great seat for Donald Trump’s Aug. 4 campaign stop at the Merrill Auditorium in Portland. She was one of 40 GOP stalwarts seated behind the Republican Presidential candidate who addressed an estimated crowd of 1,600 supporters.

Gilbert received a call from Trump’s Maine campaign staff on Aug. 2 that she was selected to hear Trump’s speech during his fourth campaign appearance in the state. Gilbert, a longtime Maine GOP activist, is the Trump/Pence Lincoln County chairman.

She supported Trump during the Maine Caucus for his stance on securing the nation’s borders and defeating both domestic and foreign terrorism. She was glad Trump stuck to his prepared remarks during his hour-long speech.

“What people like about him is that he’s not a politician, but sometimes he loses his temper and can’t let criticism go. He did a good job on telling what needs to be done about illegal immigration and terrorism and the crowd really responded positively to him,” she said.

The Portland stop was the first time Trump commented about the Obama Administration paying Iran $400 million for a decades-old weapons purchase. Iran recently released four American hostages. Trump described the $400 million as “ransom money.”

“Trump didn’t really criticize Hillary too much. But he really hit Obama hard for that $400 million,” Gilbert said. “We all cheered loudly for that because, like he said, that isn’t right.”

But the day’s biggest cheer didn’t come from one of Trump’s infamous one-liners. It came from Maine Gov. Paul LePage when he introduced the GOP nominee. LePage described Trump’s Democratic opponent as the “Queen of Corruption.”

The former Secretary of State has been battling accusations of corruption for her handling of a private email server during Obama’s first administration.

FBI Director James Comey called Clinton “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information and said “she should’ve known better than use an unclassified email system to conduct sensitive government business.” Her detractors have also been critical of the Clinton Foundation’s acceptance of foreign money during her tenure as the nation’s top diplomat.

“When the governor called her the ‘Queen of Corruption’ that drew the loudest cheer. I think that’s the perfect way of describing her,” Gilbert said.

Trump seemed to agree, too. After LePage introduced him, Trump applauded and repeated the words “Queen of Corruption.” Gilbert said the phrase is making its way onto the national news.

“When Trump endorsed Paul Ryan (U.S. Congressman and Speaker of the House) he called her the ‘Queen of Corruption’ so I think this is better than ‘Crooked Hillary’. It really shows she’s gotten rich from her position as a senator and secretary of state.”

Despite Trump’s recent slide in the polls, Gilbert is confident her candidate will prevail in November. Trump packed the Merrill Auditorium and hundreds more were outside, she said. Gilbert  described the crowd as being comprised of many old faces and new faces.

“A big segment of the crowd were working class people. Like me, they are fed up with the way professional politicians have run the country. We want change, and Donald is the man for the job,” she said.

Gilbert believes Trump has tapped into a large segment of Americans who don’t usually vote, but will cast their ballots this fall for someone who will truly change American government: Donald Trump.