Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show on Oct. 5 in Butler, Pa.Alex Brandon/The Associated Press
Surrounded by bulletproof glass and animated by his customary bombast, Donald Trump returned to the site of his attempted assassination for a theatrical rally – and there was no incident.
No snipers, no shots, no problem. No attempt on the Republican presidential nominee’s life, which could have removed his supporters’ political hero. No effort to cut him down, which could have transformed him into a martyr, an eventuality that would have horrified his critics.
On Saturday, Mr. Trump appeared in Butler, Pa., before a huge crowd. The spectacle – 84 days after the former president, obsessed with how many people he attracts to his events, barely escaped death by bullet – raised anew the question of the importance of crowd sizes in American politics.
“For 16 harrowing seconds during the gunfire, time stopped as this vicious monster unleashed evil from his sniper’s perch, not too far away,” Mr. Trump said at his latest rally. “By the hand of providence and the grace of God, that villain did not succeed. He did not stop our movement. He did not shake our unyielding resolve.”
Like many elements of the Trump oeuvre, the value of a big crowd – whether at his 2017 inauguration (where the audience wasn’t nearly as large as he claimed) or at the Butler reprise appearance (where the crowd was adoring) – is often exaggerated.
Donald Trump addresses a campaign rally from behind bullet resistant glass at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds on Oct. 5 in Butler. This is the first time that Trump has returned to Butler since he was injured during an attempted assassination on July 13.Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Political figures often are deceived, and often they over-interpret, the importance of crowd sizes. In the 1984 campaign, former vice-president Walter Mondale’s crowds grew as election day approached.
“He began to receive the largest crowds of the entire campaign,” recalled Maxine Isaacs, who was the Democratic candidate’s press secretary. “One was estimated at 25,000 people. We went on to lose 49 states.”
Charles Lindbergh, whose populist appeals and rallies for the original, isolationist America First movement often are compared with those of Mr. Trump, was a magnet for crowds in the 1940s. In the years before the American entry into the Second World War, Mr. Lindbergh’s rallies to keep the country out of the conflict attracted huge audiences in Chicago and St. Louis.
Two months before the attack on Pearl Harbor he drew 8,000 to the Des Moines Coliseum in Iowa, where he delivered an infamous speech saying “the three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration.”
In America First: Roosevelt vs Lindbergh in the Shadow of War, a book published last month, historian H.W. Brands wrote that “few speeches have had a more enduring effect on American history, and none of those worked so opposite the speaker’s intentions.”
Mr. Brands added: “In the space of 25 minutes in Des Moines, Charles Lindbergh not only destroyed his own – he expected this – but simultaneously discredited the anti-war movement and killed any plausible alternative to the globalist vision of Franklin Roosevelt.”
Like Mr. Lindbergh’s remarks, Mr. Trump’s speeches are to the converted. They are rallying cries, not efforts at persuasion; it is almost certain that no one attends a Trump rally in the hopes of evaluating his issue positions.
There are very few undecided voters in the United States today. Surely very few if any of them are at events for Vice-President Kamala Harris, either.
While some of the curious may wander into a Harris event – the Democratic presidential nominee is far less well-known than her opponent – the real value of these speeches and rallies is to ramp up the enthusiasm of those already committed to her. In an election where the outcome may be determined by which side turns out its supporters with more efficiency and effectiveness, especially in the seven swing states, voter enthusiasm is vital.
Even so, Mr. Trump, who has suggested that the crowds Ms. Harris has attracted were the product of artificial intelligence, remains preoccupied with crowd size.
A Harvard study of 2024 crowd sizes puts Mr. Trump’s average at 5,600 and Ms. Harris’s average at 13,400. But, in fairness, many of his appearances were in the primaries, where political events were held in smaller venues.
In short, what matters isn’t the size of the crowds that Mr. Trump attracts but, instead, the size of the voter turnout that he inspires. But caveat emptor: The latter is a double-edged sword, for while he surely does motivate his supporters, including many who are not regular voters, to go to the polls, he also spurs those who revile him to vote against him.
That is why Democratic operatives and political analysts say that, whatever the size of his crowds, Mr. Trump is the greatest motivator of Democratic voters.