President Donald Trump has lashed out over his dwindling rally crowds after reports showed they are not what they used to be.
Trump, 80, used to have Republicans in a chokehold, but now it looks like the MAGA icon himself is choking. On Saturday, The New York Times reported that his rally in ruby-red Mobile, Alabama, was less than packed, before analysis by the Daily Beast’s investigative Substack PunchUp laid bare just how bad the problem is.
Trump responded in a rage.
“My Rally crowds and enthusiasm are unbelievable! Nobody has ever seen anything like it,” he insisted.
His brag went on: “We are flipping races all over the place. The Fake News knows it, but they don’t want to be truthful with their viewers. It’s all happening! The Dumocrats never counted on this. Thanks you to the great Networks that are covering the Rallies in full. They are being rewarded with BIG RATINGS. Watch for the ‘Midterm Surprise!’”
Trump resurrected a complaint about Fox News in a follow-up post. “FoxNews spends more time covering the Jihadist and Dumocrat candidates than they do the good old fashioned Republicans, the people that have saved America, and are making it great again,” he said, using an interview between Martha MacCallum about “Dumocrat Jihadists like El-Sayed” as an example.
“She never interviews me like that. They don’t show my record breaking Rallies the morning after, but others do, and that’s what MAGA is watching. Fox is promoting the Dumocrats, not the Republicans and MAGA. They have totally lost their way!” he moaned.
In a third message, he declared, “MY RALLIES ARE SAVING THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, AGAIN!!!”
In his first post, Trump’s claim that his party is “flipping races all over the place,” or gaining enough support to take Democratic-held seats, is dubious, as most polls show that it is his opponents who are surging.
This week, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Trump’s approval rating remains at a career-low 32 percent, while Democrats hold a 44–37 percent advantage over Republicans among registered voters heading into the November midterms.
The Democratic lead is even larger among independents, 37–21 percent, while Hispanic voters favor Democrats 52–26 percent. The poll also found that the cost of living crisis—which the president has labeled a “hoax”—is the top issue for voters, and Republicans have lost much of their previous advantage among voters over the age of 50.
His claims about crowd size are even more dubious. After his Alabama rally crowd looked half-baked, Trump ranted that the event was actually sold out and “MAXED OUT,” and that the upper sections were vacant because rallygoers “migrate down to the Main Floor.”
During his “Trump-a-palooza” midterm convention in Dallas last month, the thin-skinned president started to spiral over any mention of empty seats.
“Everybody said, ‘You have a midterm convention; it’s going to be a disaster,’ Trump said. “No, but look at it, the highest rafter, no empty seats!”
Those who looked to the highest rafters would see that entire sections were almost empty.
Meanwhile, a damning analysis by the Daily Beast and PunchUp revealed that Trump’s crowd sizes are down up to 75 percent on his first-term pulls.
The clearest comparison of his dwindling power came in Mobile, where Trump held one of the defining rallies of his 2015 campaign. It was so popular it had to be moved to a bigger venue.
Around 30,000 people packed Ladd-Peebles Stadium, with a capacity of 40,000-plus, to see Trump that August, according to an estimate from city officials reported at the time.
When Trump returned to Mobile last Friday, however, the president appeared at the Mitchell Center, an arena with room for around 10,000 people. Local media reported that around 8,000 attended.
