The line to get into the Donald Trump rally snaked about a quarter-mile around the venue in Marietta, Georgia, on Tuesday, an hour before the event started.
The hall, which seats 2,700 people, had already started filling up with supporters, the first of whom arrived around 1pm for the 7.30pm event. Not everyone was getting in.
There’s no shortage of political enthusiasm in Georgia. Early voting opened on Tuesday, with 310,980 people casting a ballot in person according to the Georgia secretary of state’s office. The previous record was about 130,000. Few of Trump’s supporters sported “I voted” stickers.
Though the energy before the rally was high, many have noted in recent months – including Kamala Harris during the presidential debate last month – that crowds at Trump rallies dwindle as his speeches turn into multi-hour rambles.
“I’m going to actually do something really unusual and I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies because it’s a really interesting thing to watch,” Harris said during the debate. “You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”
The Guardian tested that proposition on Tuesday.
About three out of 10 people attending the rally left before Trump finished speaking at 10.14pm. In their defense, Trump was an hour and a half late.
Seven minutes into Trump’s address, as he recited a litany of grievances about inflation, schools, the quality of cars, cities, immigration and the prospect of a third world war, a dozen people had already walked out.
Twenty minutes in, as Trump was describing how “murderers” immigrating illegally posed a bigger threat to America than inflation, Ryan Taylor, a podcaster, headed to her car.
“I live an hour away, and my son is waiting in the car,” she said. “He didn’t want to come in. He’s a teenager.” He’s 15, she said.
Haley Lummus, of Jasper, Georgia, left at 9.22pm, just as Trump was describing Harris as the “taxing queen” and complaining about how his attacks on San Francisco depreciate the value of the property he owns there.
“We had to wait a while, like to get him on stage,” she said. “Everyone was doing the wave, and there was a lot of people very excited to see him cheering.” Why was she leaving early? “I worked and I’m tired.”
Perhaps 50 people had left by then.
A group of five young men wearing brand-new red “Make America Great Again” baseball caps walked out just before 9.30, as Trump was claiming that the wars in Ukraine and Gaza would not have happened if he had been president. The five looked mildly bewildered and very slightly out of place, even there.
“We’re from Denmark, and we don’t really care about American politics at all, but we wanted to experience American politics firsthand,” said Gustave. He and his friends were staying about 15 minutes away, heard about Trump’s appearance and said why not. They described the event as a “fever dream” and “something like The Bachelor” before heading off to beat traffic.
Another 50 or so left over the next 10 minutes. Four of them were thrown out.
“Some of us went in with flags to scream, ‘Free Palestine’.” said one young man who wouldn’t identify himself. Trump was talking about ending taxes on tips. “The flags got snatched from us. We got booed. We got kicked. I still support Trump though.” They complained that the burly security guard in front of them roughed them up, taunting him as they ambled on the periphery of the hall. A few minutes later, Secret Service agents arrested one of them.
By 9.50, as Trump was talking about how the “migrant invasion” was “stealing American jobs”, a consistent stream of people hit the exits. Most said they had to work the next day, or had a babysitter to relieve. Marietta is a metro Atlanta city, while Trump’s base of support often lives in more rural communities a distance away.
Season Poole, once an army diesel mechanic, lives in Social Circle, Georgia. This was her second rally; she attended one in North Carolina two weeks ago, she said. As Trump described “alien gang members and migrant criminals from prison”, Poole contemplated schoolwork and an hour drive.
At least 500 people had left by then. Voni Miller would have stayed if she could.
“He made me cry,” Miller said. “I cried when he was speaking about making changes. You know, closing the border, making changes. If Kamala wins we’re so screwed, because she can’t make up her mind about anything. It just made me cry because he’s giving up so much. He doesn’t have to do this for us. Like, you know what I mean. He has all the money, but he is still getting shot at, and people saying horrible things about him. But he’s doing it because he wants to make changes for America, and it was just so emotional.”
So. Why leave?
“I’m actually leaving early because my phone is dying and I have a Tesla so I can’t get in. It’s really upsetting, because it meant a lot to be here, and I just can’t get in my car.”
By 10.05, as Trump was talking about how important it was for police officers to be shielded from civil suits in misconduct cases for “doing something good”, Trump had lost about a third of his audience.
Stephen Rosenbaum was walking back to his car with his son at that point. “I think I get more out of these rallies than anything else, and I hope that other people do,” he said. “He shows the human side. You know, we watched the Butler rally live on television when it happened. It was terrible,” he said about the first assassination attempt on Trump. “But, you know, right before all those events took place, he said, Listen, we just want to make the country a better place.”
Rosenbaum has been to several rallies, he said.
“We wanted to see that, see it in real life. We want to see it live,” he said. But, you’re not staying for the whole thing? “He’s got to go to school tomorrow. And he’s gotten to the part now where, I mean, we’ve seen enough of these. We kind of know how it’s going to finish. We just wanted to see it live. You know?”
