In 2015 when presidential candidate Donald Trump held a rally in Mobile, Alabama,some 30,000 people came to see him speak. He was exploding in popularity ahead of the Republican primaries, and the large audience he drew in that Gulf Coast city was his first major crowd on the campaign trail. It was foreshadowing of his exceptional ability to inspire voter turnout.
But, as The New York Times reports, when Trump spoke in a far smaller 10,000-seat basketball arena in Mobile on Friday, “some upper sections were almost completely empty.”
A separate Times article notes that Trump’s recent rallies are “more modest — and at times more sedate — than they used to be.” Also last week, Trump failed to fill fill an Oklahoma casino complex with a capacity of less than 5,000 people. Over the weekend in Ohio, “several areas of an upper deck were empty by the time Mr. Trump finished speaking at a 4,500-capacity high school student activity center,” the Times notes. In a sign that Trump thinks size matters, he said on social media that “The New York Times and many other Artificial Media Outlets, should be arrested [sic]” for reporting on empty seats. He also slammed Fox News for not giving his mediocre rallies more coverage.
Trump historically has a unique ability to elevate Republican turnout, but he might not have the juice anymore.
The weaker rally turnout is yet another warning sign that the GOP may be in trouble come November. Trump’s weakened ability to command crowds doesn’t bode well for his midterms playbook, which is to make the 2026 elections all about himself, trumpet his own accomplishments, and persuade voters to “pretend” he’s on the ballot. Trump historically has a unique ability to elevate Republican turnout, but he might not have the juice anymore.
To be sure, using crowd sizes to gauge political enthusiasm is far more of an art than a science. Plenty of variables affect crowds, and enthusiastic rallies don’t necessarily translate to winning turnout at the polls. But in the aggregate, crowd sizes can indicate whether a politician has a finger on the pulse of the body politic.
In this case, Trump’s more modest crowds align with polls that indicate his hardcore base is shrinking. Multiple August polls showed that the share of Americans who strongly approve of Trump’s job performance had plunged to new lows. Moreover, rural Americans, a key element of the MAGA coalition, are also cooling on him. Such diminished support should be seen as a predictable outcome of Trump’s failed war on Iran and him turbo-charging the cost-of-living crisis with tariffs and higher oil prices trigger by his war.
Even Trump’s more purely ideological and entertainment-centric events have flopped. A USA Today columnist likened the emptiness of Trump’s “Great American State Fair” this summer as part of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations to “watching your high school bully host a party that no one attends.” Trump was reportedly “livid” at the meager turnout for his June rally kicking off the fair.
Trump has always been insecure about his crowd sizes. Sometimes, his insistence that his crowds were larger than they were is a symptom of pathetic one-upmanship. But in this case, as the midterms approach, he may be claiming that he’s drawing bigger crowds because he knows that the truth portends a rough election for the GOP.
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