Does crowd size matter?published at 18:34
Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent
Image source, ReutersSupporters waiting for Harris and Walz in Michigan last night
Donald Trump loves to compare crowd sizes. And the Harris campaign knows it. They have even been mocking him over it on his own social media platform, external.
Tuesday’s event in Philadelphia was packed. I spotted a few empty spots, but for the most part the 10,000-seat arena was full. It was after all the first event where Harris unveiled her running mate Tim Walz.
Last night, Harris continued giving Trump a run for his money – doing something out of his playbook by pulling up in Detroit at an airport hangar with Air Force 2 plane in view to be greeted by a huge crowd. Her campaign says more than 12,000 people are out tonight.
But does size matter?
Huge crowds and lines of cars aren’t always a barometer of a campaign’s destiny. In 1984, Democratic nominee Walter Mondale was trailing Ronald Reagan but pointed to the size of his crowds as a sign of enthusiasm that would translate into votes at the ballot box.
The same thing happened with Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis four years later when he was trailing Republican nominee George H W Bush.“I smell victory in the air don’t you?” he told a large crowd in Kentucky on his final weekend on the campaign trail.
He also lost.
Rallies are simply to “rally” supporters into a deeper commitment – but that doesn’t mean there’s no political benefit at all.
They can often be an incentive for people to find out more to check out the hype around a candidate or to actually ensure those who back a candidate will donate money and actually vote.