The former president Donald Trump he made attending his rallies a point of pride.

This “strange obsession“was brought up by the former president Barack Obama during his speech on August 20 at Democratic National Conventionand vice president Kamala Harris used reports of rally attendees leaving events early to cast doubt on the former president’s popularity during the September 10 presidential debate.

While his Rally of October 27 TO Madison Square Garden in New York we saw supporters lining the streets outside the storied arena, the attendance at Republican the candidate’s rallies are down since his 2016 victory.

Trump’s 2016 rallies set the stage for a seismic shift in American politics, culminating in a powerful, last-minute event in Grand Rapids. Michigan. Held on 7 November 2016, the rally attracted around 10,000 supporters who packed the venue and spilled into the surrounding areas, capturing the high-energy fervor that helped them secure victory over Hillary Clinton.

Trump again ends his bid for the White House with a event in Grand Rapidsalthough it could be affected by a trend that has increasingly characterized his rallies: declining attendance.

Newsweek has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

Declining trend confirmed by Harvard analysis

The Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC), a research initiative of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut, attended attendance at Trump rallies in 2017.

Through August 12, the CCC collected crowd size data for 28 political rallies at which Trump appeared and found that the events drew an average crowd of about 5,600 attendees.

This compares favorably to the average of 4,600 in 2023, for which the CCC tracked 19 events, and to the average of 5,200 in 21 events in 2022.

However, it marks a significant drop from the average of nearly 15,000 over eight events in 2021, which included the now infamous Trump.fight like hell” speech given at The Ellipse just hours before the January 21, 2021 riot at the US Capitol, at which the House Select Committee investigating the riots said 53,000 were in attendance.

In 2020, the 83 rallies recorded by the CCC averaged about 5,000 participants, again down from averages of 11,000 at 19 events in 2019, 7,400 at 44 events in 2018, and 8,100 at 10 events in 2017.

The numbers underscore that while his events still draw sizeable crowds, they are nowhere near the heights of his first presidential campaign.

How do Trump rallies compare to Harris, Biden?

Between late July, when Harris became the presumptive and later the official Democratic nominee, and August 12, the vice president’s rallies averaged about 13,400 attendees.

That’s more than double the usual attendance at Trump’s 2024 rallies, although the former president’s rallies have been tracked since the start of the year, and Harris’ numbers may have been boosted by the “euphoria” that some she said defined the early stages of her campaign after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race.

Before his retirement, Biden enjoyed nowhere near the same levels of public support, with its 2024 rallies averaging about 1,300 attendees, the CCC said.

In 2020, Biden made only a handful of appearances to crowds that were intentionally small due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and attendance averaged 1,600 and 2,400 in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Factors contributing to the decline

Several factors may have contributed to the drop in attendance at Trump’s rally. The initial novelty of his outsider status and heated rhetoric in 2016 was a major draw, but by 2020, he was a fixture, with years of policy and controversy shaping public perception.

The decline in attendance also reflects broader strategic changes in Republican campaign. Trump’s rallies continued with their spectacle, incorporating patriotic music, dramatic entrances and speeches designed to reinforce his anti-establishment message.

“We’re basically producing rock concerts over the course of a week, and we’re doing it several times a month,” said Justin Caporale, deputy campaign director. Reuters in April.

Instead, Harris and Biden favored more intimate engagements, connecting with voters in community settings like union halls and churches. These events, while less visually spectacular, align with modern democratic strategies aimed at personalized voter engagement.

It’s important to note that the drop in crowd numbers does not suggest a decline in enthusiasm or support for the former president, nor a decline in his ability to capture media attention and mobilize his base.

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