While Joe Biden’s rallies draw attendees by the dozens, President Donald Trump continues attracting people by the thousands.
We know who is attending Biden’s rallies: Democrats who would’ve voted Democrat no matter what. Biden isn’t pulling support from anywhere else. Despite the rise of self-professed “principled Republicans” voting against their principles like the David Frenchs of the world, or the more transparent grifters like those in the Lincoln Project, Trump is expected to win a larger share of the Republican vote than he did in 2016. Seven percent of Republicans defected and voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but only 5% plan on voting for Biden this year. Of note, 8% of Republicans voted for Obama in 2008.
Meanwhile, President Trump is even pulling some support from Democrats. Party Chair Ronna McDaniel posted statistics from Trump’s rally in Goodyear, Arizona yesterday, and it turns out that 19.5% of attendees weren’t even Republicans. But most significant is that over a third of the crowd didn’t vote in 2016 – and obviously are inclined to this year.
Another huge turnout for @realDonaldTrump!
✅ 17,251 signups for Goodyear rally
✅ 19.5% NOT Republican
✅ 35.7% (!) did not vote in 2016
Thank you to everyone helping keep ARIZONA red in 2020!
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) October 28, 2020
While the polls have favored Biden throughout the race, the GOP has been dominating in registering new voters, which hasn’t been picked up by those polls. According to TIME:
Despite Democrats’ apparent advantages that year in polling, rolls and organizing, now Republicans have narrowed those advantages by ramping up voter-registration efforts in these [battleground] and other states over the last four years. They still haven’t erased Democrats’ upperhand, but they’ve been chipping away at it, giving the party a reason to think Trump could eek out another slim win in the critical states of Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
Take, for instance, Florida. The voter registration numbers show a narrowing gap, to a 1.3-percentage-point voter-registration advantage for Democrats. Four years ago, Democrats were ahead in voter registration by party by twice that and still lost Florida by 1.2 percentage points. In 2012, Democrats had a 5.6-percentage-point registration advantage when the networks painted it blue for Barack Obama by just 0.9 points in the vote. Now, Biden is heading into Florida ahead in the polls, but with only a 1-percentage-point registration advantage for Democrats as the election starts.
Or as MSNBC was forced to acknowledge – Republicans are registering voters in Florida at the fastest rate since tracking began in 1972.
These sort of statistics that McDniale posted have been kept for a number of rallies held earlier in the year. Here’s the data for a sampling of rallies that occurred in January and February:
- At President Trump’s January rally in Toledo, Ohio, nearly half of attendees were either Democrats or independents. Twenty-three percent identified as Democrats, while 20.9% identified as independents.
- At Trump’s January rally in Wisconsin, the majority of attendees (57.8%) were not Republicans.
- At Trump’s January rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, 26.3% of attendees were Democrats, and 10% didn’t vote in 2016.
- At Trump’s February rally in New Hampshire, 25% of attendees were Democrats, and 17% didn’t vote in 2016.
- At Trump’s February rally in Arizona, 18% of attendees were Democrats, and 26% didn’t vote in 2016.
- And at Trump’s February Las Vegas rally, 18% of attendees were Democrats, and 32% didn’t vote in 2016.
And in 2019 the data was the following for a handful of rallies:
- Battle Creek, Michigan: 15% didn’t vote in last four elections, 27% were Democrats.
- Broward, Florida: 19% voted once or not at all in past four elections, 24% were Democrats.
- Dallas, Texas: 12% didn’t vote in past four elections, 21.4% were Democrats.
Can you imagine a single Republican showing up to a Biden rally? Maybe, but only if they attended ironically.
