No one wants to go to Trump rallies anymore
Campaign rallies for former President Donald Trump have gone way down in both frequency and attendance by supporters. However, aides close to the 45th president don't appear concerned.
"President Trump has all the momentum in the GOP primary,” an unnamed Trump aide recently told The Daily Beast. “He is dominating in fundraising, polling, and energy on the ground. The rallies serve as an opportunity to fire up his base, but aren’t necessary as he turns toward the general election.”
According to the Daily Beast's count, Trump held 323 rallies in 2016 between the Republican primary and the general election, and nearly 70 rallies between June of 2020 (when Covid-19 lockdowns ended) and November 3, sometimes doing as many as three or four each day. However, now Trump is only doing one or two rallies per month ahead of the 2024 Iowa caucuses.
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One former senior adviser to Trump confided to the Daily Beast's Jake Lahut that the stark drop in frequency of rallies was likely a strategy by his defense attorneys trying to keep him out of the spotlight, given that the former president is facing 91 felony counts in three separate jurisdictions.
“Honestly, given [Trump] has legal risk on many fronts, I’d probably do the same just to minimize anything that would f*** up his legal defense,” the former adviser said.
The rallies have also proven to be both one of the riskiest and costliest parts of Trump's campaign, and his operation could be reducing the number of campaign rallies in order to save money. In 2020, for example, a sparsely attended rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma cost the campaign a hefty $2.2 million after accounting for staging, travel, venue rental, security, audiovisual components, and other costs.
Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin holds a different theory: She believes the Trump campaign is holding fewer rallies and purposefully holding them in small towns, as most of his supporters have grown "bored" with hearing the same bluster from the ex-president.
READ MORE: Trump's people are holding his rallies in tiny towns because he can't draw big crowds: columnist
However, the lack of rallies could also be more simply chalked up to Trump not needing to fire up his base, as his lead over the remaining candidates in the Republican presidential primary field continues to widen. According to the RealClearPolitics polling average for the 2024 Republican primary, Trump currently holds a 47-point lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his nearest challenger.
