Former President Donald Trump’s Wednesday appearance in Asheville, North Carolina, is expected to be more focused on the economy and significantly smaller than his 2016 campaign rally in the Tar Heel State.
The event was scheduled to take place at 4 p.m. ET at Asheville’s Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, which has a maximum capacity of 2,431 people. The registration page describes the event as “President Donald J. Trump to Deliver Remarks on the Economy,” a more focused title compared to his typical rallies that address a broader range of issues.
The move comes two days before Vice President Kamala Harris is set to deliver her first policy speech, also focused on the economy, in the state’s capital, Raleigh.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Trump campaign via email on Wednesday.
Trump filled the larger auditorium next door in 2016, reportedly drawing 7,000 people to the U.S. Cellular Center. Now known as the Harrah’s Cherokee Center, the main arena can accommodate about 7,200 people, over 4,500 more than Wednesday’s expected crowd.
Asheville is a city that typically votes Democrat in a state that has voted solidly Republican in presidential elections since the 1980s, with the lone exception of President Barack Obama winning the state by a tiny margin in 2008.
The latest polling shows a tight presidential race in the state, with some polls indicating a Harris advantage, and others maintaining Trump’s lead. Nationally, most aggregate polls show Harris leading Trump by a small margin.
The Cook Political Report indicated on Wednesday that Harris is ahead by 2 percentage points when third-party candidates are included, 46 percent to Trump’s 44 percent. In a head-to-head matchup, the margin narrows, with Harris leading by 1 point, 48 percent to 47 percent.
Trump has repeatedly boasted about the size of his rally crowds, with several reports of inflated numbers. During a news conference at Mar-a-Lago last week, Trump falsely claimed to have held a rally with 100,000 spectators.
Newsweek’s analysis found that the total unobstructed capacity of the Wildwood rally site would have been somewhere between 75,000 and 77,000 people.
However, the site was obstructed, with Trump’s stage, a runway, engineering and sound areas, crowd walkways and other infrastructure that would have limited the capacity further. Counting for obstructions and the observed density of the crowd, the figure was likely to have been less than 60,000.
Additionally, Newsweek has debunked previous claims the former president made about attracting 60,000 people to a rally in Dayton, Ohio, in March 2024 and 50,000 people to an event in Pickens, South Carolina, in July 2023.
For his Wednesday appearance, Trump paid the city $82,247.60 for a “last-minute” rally, according to Blue Ridge Public Radio (BPR). The campaign, struggling to effectively blunt Harris’ momentum, reportedly first contacted the city about the rally on August 8.
Donald Trump arrives to speak to supporters at a rally on September 12, 2016, at U.S. Cellular Center in Asheville, North Carolina. On August 14, 2024, he returned to the city at a much smaller…
Donald Trump arrives to speak to supporters at a rally on September 12, 2016, at U.S. Cellular Center in Asheville, North Carolina. On August 14, 2024, he returned to the city at a much smaller venue.
More
Brian Blanco/Getty Images
Source link : https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-asheville-crowd-size-smaller-2016-1939444
Author :
Publish date : 2024-08-14 10:27:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.