President Donald Trump has lashed out at dwindling crowds at his rallies after reports showed they are not what they used to be.
Trump, 80, used to strangle Republicans, but now it appears the MAGA icon himself is choking. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that his rally in Mobile, Alabama, was far from crowded, before the Daily Beast’s Substack PunchUp investigation analysis revealed just how bad the problem is.
Trump responded angrily.
“My audience and my enthusiasm at the Rally are incredible! No one has ever seen anything like it,” he insisted.
His boast continued: “We’re flipping races everywhere. The Fake News knows it, but they don’t want to be honest with their viewers. This all happens! The Dumocrats never counted on this. Thanks to the big networks who cover the rallies in full. They are rewarded with BIG RATINGS. Watch for the ‘Midterm Surprise!'”
Trump resurrected a complaint about Fox News in a follow-up article. “FoxNews spends more time covering jihadist and Democratic candidates than the good old Republicans, the people who saved America and made it great again,” he said, using as an example a Martha MacCallum interview about “Democratic jihadists like El-Sayed.”
“She never interviews me like that. They don’t air my record rallies the next morning, but others do, and that’s what MAGA is watching. Fox promotes the Dumocrats, not the Republicans and MAGA. They’ve completely lost their way!” he groaned.
In a third message, he said: “MY RALLIES ARE AGAIN SAVING THE REPUBLIC PARTY!!! »
In his first message, Trump’s claim that his party is “overturning elections everywhere” or gaining enough support to win Democratic-held seats is dubious, as most polls show it is his opponents who are surging.
This week, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Trump’s approval rating remains at a career low of 32 percent, while Democrats hold a 44 to 37 percent advantage over Republicans among registered voters heading into the November midterm elections.
The Democratic lead is even larger among independents, between 37 and 21 percent, while Hispanic voters favor Democrats between 52 and 26 percent. The poll also finds that the cost-of-living crisis – which the president has called a “hoax” – is voters’ top issue, and that Republicans have lost much of their previous advantage among voters over 50.
His claims about crowd size are even more dubious. After the audience at the Alabama rally appeared half-baked, Trump said the event was actually sold out and “MAXED OUT,” and that the upper sections were vacant because rally attendees were “migrating down to the ground floor.”
At his “Trump-a-palooza” midterm convention in Dallas last month, the thin-skinned president began to get upset at the slightest mention of empty seats.
“Everyone was saying, ‘You have a midterm convention, it’s going to be a disaster,'” Trump replied. “No, but look at him, the highest beam, no empty seats!”
Those who looked up to the highest rafters would see that entire sections were almost empty.
Meanwhile, a damning analysis from the Daily Beast and PunchUp found that Trump’s crowd size declined by 75% during his first term.
The clearest comparison of his waning power came in Mobile, where Trump held one of the defining rallies of his 2015 campaign. It was so popular that it had to be moved to a larger venue.
About 30,000 people filled Ladd-Peebles Stadium, with a capacity of more than 40,000, to see Trump in August, according to an estimate city officials reported at the time.
However, when Trump returned to Mobile last Friday, the president appeared at the Mitchell Center, an arena that seats about 10,000 people. Local media reported that around 8,000 people attended.
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