PressSplit
The number of visitors to Trump and Harris’ rallies is a recurring topic of discussion for the candidates during the election campaign. Trump is raging against Harris because of a video.
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania – Former US President Donald Trump seems fixated on numbers. According to a report by the New York Times trying to convince US media that the crowd at his inauguration was larger than the crowd at the Women’s March the following day. What they Times-Report. The Republican candidate seems to have carried his penchant for the “numbers game”, as it is called, into this election campaign.
However, the campaign of the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, also seems to have jumped on the bandwagon. On August 10, Harris’ campaign shared two videos on X. One showed a cheering crowd at a campaign appearance by the vice president in Arizona, the other showed sparsely occupied rows of chairs in a hall. Harris’ team wrote on the video: “Meanwhile at Trump’s rally…” Newsweek Trump only took the stage hours later.
Harris campaign mocks Trump rally
Here’s to another Sideswipe from the Harris campaign Trump reacted angrily and attacked the Vice President. Harris’ campaign posted a video of a Trump event in Pennsylvania on Sunday (August 19). This video also shows numerous empty seats and people leaving the room. The Vice President’s team wrote: “Trump’s audience leaves the hall while he rambles incoherently in Pennsylvania, leaving even more empty seats behind.”
Trump rages against Harris: “A corrupt left-wing radical politician”
Trump responded to the post with a response on his platform Truth Social and called Harris “a corrupt left-wing radical politician.” Trump went on to claim: “Everything she touches turns out bad, just like California and San Francisco before it – like all Marxists do.” Trump wrote about the recording that the Republicans had to turn away 11,500 people and that the video was taken before the rally began.
The 78-year-old continued: “She is a stone cold loser, she will fail, and if she doesn’t, our country will cease to exist as we know it and turn into a communist, crime-ridden dump.” Harris’ campaign responded on Platform X, accusing Trump of “lies and slanderous delusions.”
US election campaign: Donald Trump attacks Democratic candidate Kamala Harris after a post on X (archive image) © IMAGO/Bing Guan
Trump focuses on crowd comparison ahead of US election
The Times At the beginning of August, the crowds that the 78-year-old had attracted to his rallies during this US election campaign were as large as ever. Previous competitors such as Biden had not been able to keep up with the rush to Trump’s events. Harris’ crowds, however, made Trump feel insecure.
Comparing the candidates based on the crowds that show up to support them is not unusual in the US election campaign. However, Trump is focusing on the “numbers game”. Using footage from an appearance by the Democratic candidate in early August, Trump falsely claimed that Harris’ team had distributed a fake photo of the crowd. Trump also claimed at a rally in Atlanta in early August that many seats were left empty at Harris’ event in Atlanta. Around 10,000 people attended Harris’ rally, just like Trump’s.
Trump compares rally attendance with polls on the US election
At a campaign rally in 2016, Trump said of the crowd in attendance: “Look at the love and admiration – it’s like a poll.” A statement that seems to shed light on why Trump seems to place so much emphasis on direct comparisons of attendance numbers.
Even if Trump’s rallies were better attended, polls on the US election would show that the size of the crowd is not the same as the voting behavior of all people in the USA. In polls on the 2024 US election, Harris is just ahead of Trump. The Vice President is also ahead in some of the swing states. (pav)
