Generally speaking, I don’t put a lot of stock into “rally enthusiasm” or “crowd size” as an important indicator within presidential campaigns. I’ve seen behind-the-scenes of political rallies, and sometimes the most in-person enthusiasm does not translate into GOTV work on the ground, nor does it translate into actual votes on Election Day. Crowd size and rally enthusiasm help craft the narrative of a campaign though – when Kamala Harris’s rallies are jam-packed and star-studded, the narrative is that the Harris campaign is a freight train AND a big tent, and that Harris is a generational candidate. On the other side, it’s been underreported for years that Trump’s rallies have gotten smaller and smaller. Fewer nutjobs are showing up, and Trump’s broke ass can’t afford to rent out the arenas he desperately wants to fill (but can’t). So, as you can imagine, Trump is sh-tting his diaper about Kamala Harris’s crowd sizes and supporter enthusiasm.
When former President Donald J. Trump walked onto the stage at his rally in Atlanta on Saturday, fog machines shot white plumes of smoke into the air, heralding his arrival. If you looked closely, you could almost imagine steam pouring out of his ears, too. All week long, something had been giving him the vapors.
“Crazy Kamala,” he fumed a minute into his speech. “She was here a week ago — lots of empty seats — but the crowd she got was because she had entertainers.”
Four days earlier, Vice President Kamala Harris had packed about the same number of people (10,000) into the arena, the Georgia State University Convocation Center. It was the first major rally of her newborn campaign, and she had two rappers (Quavo and Megan Thee Stallion) on hand to hype up her crowd. Mr. Trump, who has been shunned by much of the entertainment industry, spun this as somehow cheating in the all-important competition over crowd size.
“I don’t need entertainers,” he said on Saturday. “I fill the stadium because I’m making America great again.”
The numbers game has long been of paramount importance for Mr. Trump. As a reality television star, he was obsessed with ratings (“What is it about me that gets Larry King his highest ratings?” he wrote in one of his books). This only intensified once he entered politics. He spent his first full day in office as president trying to convince the news media that his inauguration crowd was larger than the Women’s March the day before. (It was not.)
It’s funny that Trump has these obsessions, honestly. During the “bad weeks” when Democrats were publicly knifing President Biden in the back, a competent Republican presidential campaign would have been able to dominate weeks (if not months) of newscycles about Dems-in-disarray and the dysfunctional chaos within the sitting president’s party. The Trump campaign couldn’t do sh-t because it’s always been a cult of personality, based around the most thin-skinned and superficial man in history. They couldn’t do sh-t about the Dem dysfunction because Trump was actually really mad that Democrats were getting so much attention. Now he’s mad that Kamala Harris is beating him at his own dumb “crowd size” obsession.
Photos courtesy of Getty, Cover Images.
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- Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Featuring: Donald J. Trump Where: Washington, District Of Columbia, United States When: 15 Sep 2023 Credit: Rod Lamkey/CNP/startraksphoto.com
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- Former United States President Donald Trump makes remarks at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Featuring: Donald Trump Where: Oxon Hill, Maryland, United States When: 24 Feb 2024 Credit: POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
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- Former US President Donald J Trump makes an early appearance on the first night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Fiserv Forum This is Trump’s first appearance since a rally in Pennsylvania, where he sustained injuries from an alleged bullet grazing his ear. Trump also named United States Senator JD Vance (Republican of Ohio) as his Vice Presidential running mate. Featuring: former US President Donald J Trump Where: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States When: 15 Jul 2024 Credit: CNP/INSTARimages
Good. Die mad, Donald.
Vote blue so we never have to hear from this orange menace again. The magats are circling the drain.
When he loses in November there will be about 5 minutes peace before he starts Trump 2028 nonsense. I fear we have to wait until he dies. I say this as an Irish woman looking in. Can’t imagine how it feels breathing the same air as him and his followers
Please. I am begging people. If we get rid of the far right, then we can start potentially going more left again instead of being pulled to the center where everything’s stuck and unmoving.
Veronica, it’s going to take more than four years to get rid of the far right. We’ll need to vigilant for 10-15 years is my guess. I think there is going to be a lot happening in the next four years (and I hope four after that with Harris), so it’s not going to be all center.
We have to remember that there are all beliefs in the US when it comes to politics. You need to appeal to the most people to be voted in. I wonder if we’ll end of with four parties. MAGA/far right, Republican, Progressive and Democrat. Our founders never anticipated we would have only two parties.
Aww poor didums – are you mad Kamala’s mushroom is bigger than yours!!!!!!
Also I thought it was well known/documented that his team were paying for spectators to turn up at his rallys?
Fun story: I work at a venue that 45 has visited a few times in the past.
1. His numbers of the amount of people were twice what we could physically hold, even with our “overflow” room that just had a live stream of the rally in our main event space.
2. He has stuck the city with a few security bills that they never paid, to this day they are unpaid because they keep trying to bill us for it.
3. His security team consists of SS and mercenaries. And they are beyond nice. It was weird.
Are some the blacks for trump behind him, white people wearing makeup?
The guy holding up the ‘fire him’ sign behind Vance’s head was having so much fun, holding up the sign at the wrong time.
A few of the dark skinned attendees behind Trump do look like their skin is painted, there is a matte looking strangeness to their skin and the colour is uniformly similar on them, contrary to natural shade variations one would see from genuine skin. One man in particular looks as artless as Al Jolson.
The news media should pay better attention and call out both physical blackface and digital manipulation of crowds. It would be easy to add digital people that were not physically present in real life. This deception is appalling and should be reported on and condemned. There should be independent confirmation that these events are covered as they happened to compare against any video manipulation after the fact. It is grotesque and insulting in the first instance, slippery deception all round.
It’s not only fewer people going to his rallies, it’s the *same* people at all of them- following him around like Grateful Dead fans (no offense to Grateful Dead fans). I don’t think rally crowds matter- I will vote for Harris and I will not attend any rallies- but I do love that it bothers him.
What is scary is that before he didn’t win the popular vote.
He has never won the popular vote. The magats figured out how to pick off people who would normally vote Democrat in close swing states. Their racists, sexist, homophobic rhetoric appeals to some people, unfortunately. This election will come down to a few hundred thousand voters in the swing states because of the electoral college. Vote blue!
Exactly. Nobody needs to get complacent about any crowds or polls. VOTE.
Those swing states emphasize how insane the EC is to even exist anymore, that’s for sure. You basically don’t even have to run in 80% of the country save for those key states that will win or lose the election. People should be pulling all stops out in November because voting suppression will absolutely be a thing.
There have been literally hundreds of court cases over voter suppression laws and gerrymandering and they continue.. it’s been nonstop for over four years.. good news is that they have been winning against these suppression laws and gerrymandered areas in the courts. I’m hoping that is a good sign.
Don-Old likes numbers? 78, oldest candidate for president.
Harris received nearly 4,600 votes in the five-day online voting process, which the DNC said was 99% of participating delegates. Don-Old had some issues (he wasn’t chosen by 99% of his delegates) with Haley voters, who unlike Nikki Haley seem to be Republicans open to voting for Kamala Harris.
The polls, which a couple of weeks ago showed TFG leading aren’t showing that anymore; it’s a dead heat.
Rallies: YES, size matters and people are showing up for your opponent, Don-Old.
Well, he’s gonna lose it as she keeps getting hyped. Vote vote vote so we can all see him lose to a woman.
Him losing to a woman will be epic. And will lead to whining and accusations of cheating for years.
The ultimate huckster can’t sell his snake oil without a big circus. I’ve always been convinced most of his audience consists of paid actors. And there are multiple examples on the Internet of him photo-shopping crowd pix to multiply the head counts. He’s a has-been showman with a sad, sad act. We have to give him the hook!
This made me laugh. DonOLD is mad about crowd sizes. He has been obsessed sizes – crowd sizes and height……makes me wonder what is psychologically going on.
Meanwhile groups are sprouting up everywhere: ComicsforKamala, HaleyvotersforKamala, WomenforKamala, LatinomenforKamala, RepublicansforKamala, YoungrepublicansforKamala ……and the excitement CONTINUES to grow.
Cannot wait to see Trump’s bigly temper tantrum when he finally loses to a woman in November. It will be epic 🍿
The very simple needling campaign is the way to make him blow sooner. With his ego and personality disorders the fastest way to make him loose his temper is with words like “weird”.. it won’t be long, they won’t be able to get him off mic soon enough before long. It may seem silly but it works.
Conway is commenting on Twitter that the Dems are already in his head and this is the way to destroy his shot at POTUS because he cannot help himself and will ultimately destroy himself.
Brace yourself. I have the feeling there will be lawsuits for months. Of course, he won’t concede. And who knows what they intend to do to prevent people from voting or to prevent votes from being counted.
I guess Kid Rock, Hulk Hogan etc aren’t entertainers. MSNBC (who seems to have finally woken up to the horrors of Project 2025 and doing better journalism) had a YouTube clip that actually showed side by side panoramic videos of both events and said 45 only filled about 60% of that arena. I knew he’d throw a tantrum about that. And he did. He also blamed the school for not allowing the “5-to 6 hundred to a thousand people waiting outside” to get into the arena. Again, no proof of this, just more grandiose (aka bs) statements and trashing Georgia politicians – namely their governor and secretary of state who refused to fraudulently “give” 45 the votes he demanded to beat Biden. And the governor (Brian Kemp) says he’ll still vote for Trump. Pathetic.
No, he started off by saying that there were “500” outside, which he quickly changed to “thousands” waiting outside. It really bothered him. What a small man. For his next appearance, no nursing home or senior citizen center will be safe. They all be dragged out to fill seats.
Temper, temper Humpty Dumpty. With your health regime and diet, you’re likely to have a stroke…
Please forgive my naiveite, but I’m still flabbergasted that people in this country made a giant orange clown president, and are thinking about doing so again.
Trust me, you are not alone in your confusion, Proud Mary. I’m baffled, gobsmacked and amazed that anyone other than the truly insane would want him for leader of their country.
Brainwashing. They vote for him, wear his merch, display his ornaments, cos they truly think he will save them from… well conspiracy theories. A well oiled machine that has been around for ages, works like any religion in the world. No disrespect to deeply religious, but that’s not my cup of whatever. House Speaker thinks the earth is 6000 years old. It is collective insanity.
As a non-american person I will forever be dumbfounded when thinking that millions of people still vote for an almost eighty years old man who talks like a five years old child.
Each time I look at that smoke cannon- stage picture, I LOL at the angry, jutting jaw!!! The empty seats have him seething inside, and I love that for him.
It’s only a matter of time before the Trump campaign uses what happened at the rally in Butler as the reason for diminished crowd size (people want to be there but are afraid of “unhinged lefties” attacking). The MAGA folks are VERY angry that the attempt is not a bigger story and that people have pretty much moved on.
They’ve also set themselves up for more embarassment about rallies because Vance seems to be playing stalker planning his events at the same campaign stops as the Harris events at the same/similar times. The event in Philly today showed their hand that they planned their campaign expecting Josh Shapiro to be the running mate (there was some unhinged anti-Shapiro propaganda out on media tables this morning) and that they expected to not only let the antisemitism fly with the base but hoped that they could fracture the unity of the left by leaning in on everything the far left/Zoomers hate about Shapiro
Right now, they’re going for the opposite tactic: she didn’t choose him because he’s Jewish. Whether that sticks or not, I don’t know. I feel for a lot of Jewish people right now because they’re not seen as a traditionally vulnerable population, but they’ve definitely got people on the left who can’t separate criticism of Israel from Jewish identity and the complexity of the situation there, and then you have the right who is just thrilled to have a minority group they can use as a pummel against the left and manipulate for gain, even as Israel is doing things that deserve more international scrutiny. Just a gross, shitty situation all around.
Most of the Jews I know (myself included) were very prepared for an increase in antisemitism if he was picked so we should be pretty prepared for the BS that’s happening now. It’s very frustrating being online and seeing how many people on the left have decided that Jews are white oppressors with a long history of colonization and support for genocide. People seem to think we originated in Europe, where we were welcome (?!) and just moved around freely to colonize places then suddenly decided that we have some loose ties to Israel and that we support what Israel is doing now. Being Jewish and affiliated with any Jewish organization, including synagogues, is being labeled as pro-genocide because most Jewish orgs do have ties to Israel. The fact so many on the left (and zoomers) don’t understand that the vast majority of funding for the Israeli RW and the settlers in the West Bank comes from Christian Zionists (who are Christian Nationalists and Trump supporters) and Trumpublican Jews who are a minority in our community – Jews are overwhelmingly liberal and reliable Dem voters
I will say, regardless of the outcome in November, all of us need to be prepared for what’s going to happen. If Trump wins, we know it’s going to be the end of American democracy as we know it, but I don’t think it’ll be particularly easy if Kamala wins, either. The Capitol riot was just the start of the backlash created by the lies and mistruths promulgated by the right-wing media. I’m absolutely expecting violence if she loses, and I definitely expect some Republican controlled counties in swing states to refuse to certify votes. We have the courts stacked against us. This will not be fun.