Hillary Clinton's policies would increase violent crime and prevent struggling families from achieving the American Dream, Donald Trump charged on Tuesday during a pivotal speech about the decline of middle-class prosperity and the erosion of rule of law.

"The Democratic party has run nearly every inner city in this country for 50 years and run them into financial ruin," Trump told voters in West Bend, Wis., miles away from the violent protests that have sent Milwaukee into a state of emergency after an armed 23-year-old black man was shot dead by police.

In poverty-stricken areas across the U.S., the Republican presidential nominee said Democrats have "ruined the schools, they've driven out the jobs [and] they've tolerated a level of crime no American should consider acceptable."

"This is the future offered by the policies of Hillary Clinton and her friends: more poverty, more crime and basically just more of the same," Trump warned, adding that the future offered by his Democratic opponent "is the most pessimistic thing I could possibly imagine."

Trump, promising to be the agent of change, said he has listened to their "cries of help from so many people" in America and wears his critics' opposition "as a badge of honor because it means I'm fighting for real change, not just partisan change."

"I'm running to hear your voice," he said minutes after the audience broke out into chants of "We want Trump!"

Trump, who has trailed Clinton by as many as 80 percentage points in recent state-level surveys of African Americans, attempted to convince black voters that his Democratic opponent will pay no attention to them if she makes it to the White House. Clinton "panders and talks down to communities of color and sees them only as votes, not as individuals and human beings worthy of a better future" he claimed.

"She doesn't care at all about the hurting people of this country and the suffering she has caused them."

Trump began his speech, which was co-written by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, with an assessment of the current state of the race. "We're at a decisive moment in this election," he told the crowd, who had come for a campaign rally that Trump later traded for prepared remarks.

"Last week, I laid out my plan to bring jobs back to this country. Yesterday, I laid out my plan to defeat radical Islamic terrorism," Trumps said before leveling attacks against Clinton and the Democratic party over two new issues: poverty and crime.

"I believe all Americans, not just the powerful are entitled to security," said the candidate. "Hillary Clinton has had her chance. She has failed … Now, it's time for new leadership."