Empty seats are becoming an increasingly common sight at Trump’s latest rallies

PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Donald Trump has bragged about his audience for nearly a decade. Lately he’s been making the same boast to countless empty seats.

In his third presidential bid, Trump is confronted for the first time with an opponent who organizes her own massive rallies, drawing attention once again to the fact that his audiences, no matter how enthusiastic they are, have sometimes failed to fill the large halls. filling and often thinning as he spoke.

In North Carolina, the former president and Republican candidate spoke this weekend at the First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro, where the lower level of the 22,000-seat arena remained unfilled and the upper level was completely closed off.

“We have had the biggest rallies in history of any country. Every meeting is full,’ he wrongly claimed. “You don’t have empty seats.”

He started Monday, the eve of the election, in Raleigh, North Carolina, where a late-arriving crowd nearly filled the room but left a few empty seats. In Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump took the stage at Santander Arena, where there were sections of empty seats in the 7,200-seat arena. During the campaign, a large American flag was hung at the back of the arena, blocking the view of several seating areas that remained unfilled.

He then headed to PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, where the upper level seating had been closed off again.

The former president’s crowd still numbered in the thousands, with frequent cheers as he spoke. But the scenes were a striking contrast to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’ biggest events this fall — and to the volume and atmosphere of Trump’s crowd eight years ago, when he sought and won the presidency for the first time.

To be fair, crowd size is not necessarily predictive of election results. And his core supporters remain so committed this year that just days ago he filled Madison Square Garden in heavily Democratic New York City.

Still, Trump has attracted smaller crowds in the latter part of the campaign than in previous races, especially during his first campaign, when his mass events became a political phenomenon. Trump’s crowds have also often thinned out this fall as the former president’s lengthy speeches entered their second hour.

People routinely leave while he is speaking, sometimes in large numbers, after waiting several hours for a spot.

There are reasons why some may be tired.

Trump returns to the same battlegrounds again and again, sometimes in the same places and even in the same locations. Trump’s smaller crowd in Greensboro, for example, came eight days after he campaigned in the same city.

He’s also often late, recently starting three hours late in Traverse City, Michigan, after taping an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan.

But whatever the explanation, the former reality TV star and consummate showman clearly remains invested in the performative aspect of presidential politics and is clearly concerned that Harris, unlike Democrats Hillary Clinton in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020 , can match and even surpass his signature campaign tactics. . For example, Harris recently filled the grand coliseum in Greensboro.

Democrats have embraced the dynamic as a way to get under Trump’s skin. Former President Barack Obama, the last national figure before Trump and Harris to make mass rallies a key part of his campaigns, noted Trump’s “weird obsession” with crowd size during his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August. Obama added mocking hand gestures about size that evoked Trump’s own comments during his first campaign about hand sizes and his implication that they reflected his masculinity.

Harris invoked the size of the audience during her only debate against Trump, one of several times she knocked the former president off course during their 90-minute conversation. She urged people to attend Trump’s rallies as a way to understand that his time had passed.

Trump on Monday night in Pittsburgh pointed to Beyoncé’s performance at a recent Harris rally that drew more than 30,000 people. The megastar introduced Harris to Houston but did not perform.

Harris has campaigned with a bevy of celebrities and pop stars in the final days of the campaign, ending with a rally in Philadelphia with Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga. The star of Trump’s show, meanwhile, remains the former president.

In recent days he has shown a melancholic side, both about the rallies and the crowds that come to see him – no matter how big they really are.

“I’ve got one more,” he said in Pittsburgh, looking wistfully ahead of his late-night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “And remember: the rallies are the most exciting thing there is. There will never be such meetings. This will never happen again.” ——

Barrow reported from Washington. Jonathan J. Cooper contributed from Phoenix.