NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Thousands of roaring supporters greeted President Donald Trump for an airport tarmac rally Friday night, most barefaced and crammed together and all willing to defy the coronavirus and state rules to shower him with affection in the heat of a tight campaign.

“Fill that seat!” they chanted as he mentioned the Supreme Court vacancy he’ll fill Saturday afternoon.

“Boo!” they shouted at the mention of Democratic rival Joe Biden’s promise to put former El Paso congressman Beto O’Rourke in charge of gun policy.

“He’ll take your guns away … and wage the most aggressive war on gun rights in US history,” the president warned. “Only by voting for me can you save your country and save your Second Amendment.

Virginia has banned gatherings of more than 250 people during the pandemic, indoors or out. Violation is a misdemeanor. Entertainment venues can go to 1,000, but an airport tarmac or hangar does not fit that definition.

There’s no exception for presidents or campaign events.

“He wants an event with 4,000 people, to have a super-spreader event here in the Commonwealth of Virginia. … He’s putting us at risk,” former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, told reporters on a call Friday afternoon. “He is ignoring all of our regulations. … He doesn’t care about Virginians, he doesn’t care about Americans.”

In the crowd, though, a sea of faces as big as any in a normal election year, 29-year-old Katie Schumann, a military spouse who lives just on the other side of the airfield, scoffed at the public health rules.

“We’re here to show our daughter what it means to be a patriot,” she said, her 6-year-old on Dad’s shoulders, none wearing masks. “It’s wonderful. What’s happened with the shutdown is a travesty. It’s bad for business. It’s bad for morale.”

Did she know anyone who’d contracted COVID-19? “Not a one,” she said.

Nearby, 69-year-old Robert Jernigan, a civilian worker at Langley Air Force Base who was wearing a mask, was likewise pleased at the huge turnout in defiance of the state’s rules.

“I’m glad to see so many people. You’ve got to live life,” he said. “A lot more people wanted to come, but there was a mix-up. People thought they had to have paper tickets.”

Trump uses these mass gatherings to project and generate enthusiasm, and to reinforce a message that normalcy is returning. He stepped up the tempo this week to a pace on par with any ordinary election year, as Democrats accuse him of pretending that more than 203,000 American haven’t died on his watch, with more than 7 million infected.

“Joe Biden is not doing these types of events. Joe Biden is relying on the science,” McAuliffe said, recalling an especially large rally in Oklahoma on June 20 that local authorities tried to block, and later blamed for a spike in COVID-19 cases.

“Herman Cain is dead today because he went to that rally in Tulsa,” McAuliffe said, referring to the former GOP presidential candidate and Trump supporter.

The White House denied any link between Cain’s death and that rally, and the Trump campaign insists it’s within its rights to hold large rallies regardless of state and local requirements and guidelines.

“If people can riot in the streets, loot from small businesses or, in the Virginia governor’s case, take a mask-less stroll along the beach, then they can peacefully gather under the First Amendment to hear the president of the United States address the American people,” said campaign spokeswoman Courtney Parella, deputy national press secretary for the Trump campaign.

The campaign said that everyone attending the Newport News event would be checked for fever before admission.

Mask wearing would be encouraged, and hand sanitizer would be available, though airborne transmission is the main vector for the novel coronavirus, and droplets were sure to waft as thousands of people, most barefaced, cheered.

On Friday morning, Virginia’s current governor, Ralph Northam, a Democrat and pediatric neurologist, announced that he and his wife had tested positive. The first lady had mild symptoms.

“As I’ve been reminding Virginians throughout this crisis, COVID-19 is very real and very contagious,” Northam said. “The best thing you can do for us — and, most importantly, for your fellow Virginians — is to take this seriously.”

Trump has been tantalizing supporters with the impending nomination to the Supreme Court, expected to be federal appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett. He will introduce his choice to replace the liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Sept. 18, at a Rose Garden ceremony Saturday afternoon.

The opportunity to flip the court’s ideological balance has reignited Republicans, although by 57% to 38%, Americans say the seat should remain vacant for the winner of the election to fill, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Friday afternoon.

Warnings ignored

On Thursday, the governor’s office and state health department urged the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport to enforce the state’s ban on large gatherings and the governor’s order mandating that everyone over age 10 wear a mask in public.

“An event of this size during the COVID-19 pandemic is a severe public health threat,” the Virginia Department of Health wrote, noting the “considerable evidence” that the Trump campaign does not enforce face-covering requirements and social distancing recommendations.

That has been apparent to anyone who’s watched C-SPAN lately. In the past week alone, Trump has held large campaign events at airports in Fayetteville, N.C., Toledo, Pittsburgh and Jacksonville, Fla.

Each featured a large crowd packed tight and low rates of mask compliance, though the campaign has been diligent to ensure that supporters standing behind the president do keep their faces covered, usually with red masks bearing the “MAGA” logo.

The head of the local Hampton & Peninsula Health District tried to persuade Atlantic Aviation, the private facility that hosted Friday night’s rally, to pull out, saying that with 4,000 expected “the rally poses a concerning public health risk.”

At the state GOP, chairman Rich Anderson — who did wear a mask at the rally — boasted ahead of time about the “huge, unprecedented turnout” thanks to enthusiasm across the state.

Virginia Democrats blasted the campaign for going through with the rally despite the warnings, risks and rules.

“Does the law apply to the president and his friends? That is a fundamental question that people have to address — whether they want a president that has no respect for the law,” said Rep. Bobby Scott, a Democrat whose congressional district includes the president’s rally site.

Scott, like other Democrats, blasted the president and his GOP allies for pushing to fill the Supreme Court seat so close the election, especially since in 2016 “Republicans made such a sanctimonious production out of the principle of not filling vacancies at the Supreme Court during an election year.”

This was Trump’s first campaign event in Virginia, where former Vice President Joe Biden held solid double digit leads throughout the summer.

Two polls in the last month showed Biden ahead by 14 points, though a poll released Thursday by Christopher Newport University showed Trump lagging by just 5.

Campaigning in the southeast corner of Virginia does double duty, because local media reaches into North Carolina, which is on everyone’s list of battlegrounds. That’s one of the very few states where Biden has stumped in person during the pandemic, and he’s sending his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, to Raleigh on Monday.

Democrats have won the last three presidential contests in Virginia. Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 5 points. Barack Obama won both his races here, by six points in 2008, when he snapped a decades-long GOP streak, and by four points in his reelection.

Trump aides insist their man can win this year.

“You never know,” said campaign senior advisor Jason Miller, waiting to deplane from Air Force One once the president had returned to Washington.