Former US President Donald Trump campaigned in Alaska on Saturday for Sarah Palin, the former governor of the northern state whose rise many see as the populist forerunner to Trump's anti-elite movement.

The two outspoken politicians have both played key roles in the Republican Party's recent shift toward appealing to the disgruntled working class.

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They have both promoted "false claims" of widespread election fraud in the 2020 election, at least in key states where Trump lost. "In Alaska, we didn't have to worry about it, because we won," Trump told the stadium crowd.

Palin rose to prominence after being chosen as the late Arizona Senator John McCain's running mate in the 2008 presidential election. Her rise during the 2008 campaign, as a Christian conservative who leaned heavily on her outsider status, is widely regarded as paving the way for businessman Trump to successfully win the White House eight years later.

According to a recent study, the majority of #Americans do not want either Joe #Biden or Donald #Trump to run for President in 2024, highlighting the uncertainty they are feeling about their next president. pic.twitter.com/5cxmoaLXDj

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) June 21, 2022

Their norm-breaking campaigns were a direct contrast to previous Republican standard-bearers Mitt Romney and John McCain, who received a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom from US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, this week.

Palin, an early supporter of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, told the audience that she was drawn to the New Yorker because he had supported her when she and her family were the focus of intense media scrutiny. "He would write me a note and he would say 'hang in there,'" she said.

She is running to replace Republican Congressman Don Young, who died in March after 49 years in the US House of Representatives.

The US midterm elections, in which all 435 House seats and roughly one-third of the Senate's 100 seats are up for grabs, are scheduled for November 8.

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