The rallies Donald Trump has claimed are “hotter than ever” are attracting far fewer fans than those that powered his rise to the White House a decade ago, according to analysis by the Daily Beast and PunchUp.
An angry Trump, 80—who once boasted that “a small rally is 20,000 people”—lashed out Monday at reports that he was struggling to pull in numbers like he used to, insisting, “I never have empty seats.”
But the evidence does not support the president’s words.
With his approval ratings in the dirt over the economy and failing war on Iran, Trump’s latest midterm blitz has seen him address high school gyms and venues dramatically smaller than those he packed during his first presidential campaign, drawing crowds up to 75 percent smaller.
The clearest comparison of his dwindling power came in Mobile, Alabama, where Trump held one of the defining rallies of his insurgent 2015 campaign, so popular it had to be moved to a bigger venue. Around 30,000 people descended on the 40,000-plus capacity Ladd-Peebles Stadium to see Trump that August, according to an estimate from city officials reported at the time.
When Trump returned to Mobile last Friday, however, the president appeared at the Mitchell Center, an arena with room for around 10,000 people. Local media reported that around 8,000 attended.
The venue was about 75 percent smaller than the stadium Trump used in 2015, while the estimated crowd had fallen by around 73 percent.
Another striking like-for-like comparison highlighted Trump’s struggles in Vandalia, Ohio, last Saturday. Around 10,000 people had attended a rally in an air hangar there during the 2016 Republican primary, according to local reporting at the time.
This time Trump spoke at Butler High School. Its Student Activity Center holds around 4,500 people. The Washington Post reported that more than 4,000 turned out—less than half the crowd reported when Trump visited the same town a decade ago.
At that same venue during the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump set himself an awkward benchmark that he’s now falling way short of. “We get 25,000, 30,000 people,” he bragged. “A small rally is 20,000 people.”
Two and a half years later, the entire building chosen for Trump’s latest Vandalia rally could hold fewer than a quarter of the 20,000 people he once called a “small rally.”
A source close to the president pointed out that this was a midterm election campaign. And, in fairness, Trump has not struggled to fill every stop on his latest tour.
His appearance at the Choctaw Event Center in Durant, Oklahoma, last Thursday reached its configured capacity, and some supporters couldn’t get inside, per local reporting. But even then, the venue was configured for only around 4,000 people—one-fifth of Trump’s own definition of a “small rally.”
Trump also packed out the Pinnacle Bank Expo Center in Grand Island, Nebraska, on Monday night, with local media reporting approximately 5,800 people inside and standing room only—the maximum capacity permitted by the Grand Island Fire Department. Supporters had begun lining up the night before, and lines wrapped around the building, according to local station 10/11 NOW.
Yet even that crowd underscored the dramatic change in scale, since even with every available space filled, the Nebraska venue could accommodate less than a third of the 20,000 Trump once described as a “small rally.”
The use of small venues comes as Trump and his aides publicly insist enthusiasm for the president remains red hot. “The last four events in TX, OH, AL, and OH have been some of the most enthusiastic and hot crowds I’ve ever seen,” Cheung wrote Sunday.
A spokesman for the Republican National Committee told the Beast and PunchUp that the smaller venues did not reflect waning enthusiasm, saying Trump and Vice President JD Vance were “working” in “activating voters in strategic areas of the country to boost Republican candidates ahead of the midterms.”
Polling evidence to test whether the latest rallies have achieved that goal is still lacking, with most available surveys conducted before Trump began his current blitz. But the tour comes against a difficult polling backdrop for the GOP.
Democrats held an advantage of around 9 points in national generic-ballot polling averages this week, while Republicans were facing unexpectedly competitive races in a string of states Trump won comfortably in 2024—including Ohio, Texas and Nebraska.
The White House was approached for comment. Its spokesman, Davis Ingle, defended Trump’s “electrifying and wildly popular” rallies before descending into insults about the Beast and its reporters.
Tom Latchem exposes the secrets, scandals, and stories that powerful people and institutions want to keep under wraps. Follow all of his reporting at PunchUp on Substack.
