President Trump ventured beyond the Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday for the first time in more than two months, turning an official appearance at an Arizona factory producing respirator masks into an event with a campaign rally feel.

In his latest show of support for returning to normal life even as the coronavirus continues to spread, Trump took a day trip to Phoenix to visit a Honeywell International plant that manufactures N95 masks and to hold a round table on Native American issues.

But Arizona has also emerged as a battleground state for the 2020 election, and several recent polls show him either tied with or trailing the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice- President Joseph R. Biden Jr. One of Mr. Trump’s last “Keep America Great” campaign rallies before the pandemic largely halted his travel was in Phoenix, on February 19.

In heavily political remarks to Honeywell employees after a tour of the factory, the president said that “our country is now in the next stage of the battle” against the virus and that “now we are reopening our country”.

Trump also boasted of his 2016 electoral victory in the state, called for “the full truth about the China situation” and gave the microphone to a pair of local campaign supporters.

The coronavirus has severely confined Trump, who before often left Washington several times a week. He last held a campaign rally on March 2, in Charlotte, North Carolina, before indefinitely suspending campaign events.

He stopped his regular trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and a nearby golf club in West Palm Beach after March 8.

The day trip was Trump’s third known outing from the White House since social distancing practices went into effect nationwide in mid-March. The President travelled to Norfolk, Virginia, in late March to see off a Navy hospital ship bound for New York and did not leave again until Friday, when he went to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.

Trump wore safety goggles as he toured the 500-employee plant, which previously manufactured aerospace equipment. But he did not wear a mask, despite signage near the factory floor announcing safety guidelines that included an admonition: “Please wear your mask at all times.” Other members of Trump’s entourage, including the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and the national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, also did not cover their faces.

Trump took the stage not to the traditional “Hail to the Chief” but to Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the U.S.A.