Harris campaign weaponizes crowd size against Trump
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Harris rallies in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on Wednesday. Photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
It's not just Donald Trump obsessing about crowd size at events. Democrats are gleefully jumping into the comparison game, powered by a surge in grassroots enthusiasm.
Why it matters: For the first time in more than a decade, Democrats believe the candidates are right — and the conditions are ripe — to break up Trump's monopoly over raucous campaign rallies.
Zoom in: The shift in mindset is clearly driving Trump nuts.
- Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are drawing huge crowds as they barnstorm swing states this week, generating an exuberant atmosphere that had been missing from the Biden campaign.
- For the digitally savvy Harris campaign, the public displays of enthusiasm are valuable not just for driving fundraising and earned media — but also for needling Trump on his home turf.
What they're saying: Asked Thursday whether he was "worried at all by the size of Harris' crowds," a visibly frustrated Trump lashed out at the "dishonest" press and claimed his rallies were "10 times, 20 times, 30 times" bigger.
- Later in his news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump pivoted from a question about the violence on Jan. 6 to boast about the size of the rally he held on the Ellipse shortly before his supporters attacked the Capitol.
- "In history, for any country, nobody's had crowds like I have," Trump said. "If you look at Martin Luther King when he did his great speech … and you look at the picture of his crowd, my crowd — we actually had more people."
Flashback: In 2016, Hillary Clinton frequently opted for modest, policy-focused events over packed arenas — drawing a stark contrast with Trump and Democratic primary rival Bernie Sanders.
- In 2020, President Biden paused in-person campaigning after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, before eventually resuming with socially distanced events and drive-in rallies.
- In 2024, concerns over Biden's age sapped the Democratic energy needed to drive huge crowds, even before the 81-year-old's disastrous debate performance and eventual withdrawal.
Zoom out: At her first rally as a candidate last month, Harris packed a roughly 8,000-capacity arena in Atlanta and produced an atmosphere that some attendees compared to Barack Obama's first campaign in 2008.
- In Philadelphia on Tuesday, Walz appeared visibly staggered by the 14,000 joyous supporters who came out to welcome him to the Democratic ticket.
- In Eau Claire, Wis., on Wednesday, droves of rally-goers ditched their cars along rural roads and walked miles in the heat to the venue, Axios Twin Cities' Torey Van Oot reports.
- Later that day in Detroit, the Harris campaign took a page out of Trump's playbook by holding its rally in an airport hangar. The candidates arrived on Air Force Two to the tune of Beyoncé's "Freedom."
Between the lines: Trump, who has spent years fixated on rally optics, takes any mention of Harris' crowd size as a personal affront.
- In posts on Truth Social, the former president has baselessly claimed that Harris' campaign is paying people to attend its rallies.
- Other Trump allies argue turnout has been artificially juiced by free musical performances from artists such as Megan Thee Stallion in Atlanta and Bon Iver in Wisconsin.
Reality check: As Trump learned in 2020, large-scale rallies don't necessarily translate to electoral success.
- They can be comfort food for the candidates, but Harris is increasingly facing pressure to sit down for media interviews and prove her mettle in unscripted settings.
- The Democratic base may be energized by the Harris-Walz tour, but it'll be all for naught if the campaign can't persuade swing voters who've never attended a political rally.
