Trump Claims Harris’s Rallies Are Smaller. We Counted
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/07/us/politics/harris-trump-rally-crowds-size.htmlThe sizable support Vice President Kamala Harris has generated at her rallies has rattled former President Donald J. Trump, who has emphasized, and frequently exaggerated, his crowd sizes for years. He has said, often repeating falsehoods, that his crowds are much larger than Ms. Harris’s, and the Harris campaign has returned with their own jabs about the enthusiasm of Trump rallygoers.
We attended six rallies — every campaign event that the candidates held within a three-week period in August — across six states, taking photographs and capturing video and 360-degree footage, to analyze which claims on crowd sizes hold weight. The analysis found that, despite Mr. Trump’s claims, both candidates draw comparably big audiences.
On a Friday night, Mr. Trump drew 11,500 people to the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz. Here’s what it looked like:
On a Tuesday night during the weeklong Democratic National Convention in late August, Ms. Harris drew 12,800 to a campaign event at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wis. Here’s a scene from that rally:
The four other campaign events that The Times attended were similarly packed, with audience members generally filling up the space designated for the event. The rallies took place at venues with maximum capacities ranging from 6,800 to 19,300 people, though in some cases sections of seating were cordoned off, and additional seating or standing-only areas were added.
