There are no crowds at Disneyland, still shut down by the coronavirus. Fewer fans attended the World Series this year than at any time in the past century. Big concerts are canceled.
But it’s a different story in Trumpland. Thousands of President Donald Trump’s supporters regularly cram together at campaign rallies around the country – masks optional and social distancing frowned upon.
Trump saw large crowds at two of his three campaign appearances Friday – in Michigan and Wisconsin, two states he flipped from the so-called Democratic "blue wall" – but his rally in Minnesota, a longtime Democratic stronghold state he's hoping to flip, was a much smaller, subdued affair. Attendance was capped at the insistence of state and local officials.
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In Minnesota, Trump spoke for 21 minutes, far less than he normally does, to a small crowd after Minnesota officials capped the attendance at large gatherings.
Trump slammed the state's governor, calling Gov. Tim Walz "a weak governor," saying "he's done a terrible job. He doesn't know what the hell he's doing."
Trump claimed that Minnesota's governor and attorney general tried to get him to cancel his event, "but I said no way, I will never abandon the people of Minnesota."
"Remember what your governor did this evening. And it's a small thing but a horrible thing to thousands and thousands of people that are outside that could be here," Trump said, referring to supporters who waited outside in an overflow area.
Slamming Biden and Keith Ellison, the state's attorney general, Trump told supporters they "want to imprison you in you homes while anarchists roam free.”
“The Democratic Party wants you to be banned from peaceful assembly while they allow their supporters to burn down a police precinct," he added.
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"You are so lucky I'm your president," Trump told the crowd gathered in Green Bay, after saying that his campaign would win Wisconsin, a key battleground state he flipped in 2016.
Trump claimed, without evidence, that if Biden wins, "there will be no heating in the winter, no air conditioning in the summer, and no electricity whenever the hell you want it," adding, "right now, you have it made, you're so lucky."
He echoed his claim that the country is "rounding the corner" on the coronavirus pandemic, as the country hit a grim milestone of 9 million cases, and the state continues to see record COVID-19 cases.
On Friday, Wisconsin saw over 5,000 new positive coronavirus cases, 24 deaths, and 142 new hospitalizations, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
Trump also touted that his advisers told him that he is tied in Wisconsin, though a FiveThirtyEight polling average shows him trailing Biden by 8.6 points in the state.
The final Marquette Law School Poll before the end of the 2020 Presidential Election shows Biden holding a lead over Trump.
The poll found that 48% of likely voters in Wisconsin favored Biden, while 43% support Trump; the poll showed Biden's lead as consistent with previous poll releases over the course of the summer.
Meanwhile, Melania Trump plans to make solo campaign appearances for the president on Saturday in Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania.
The first lady will head to West Bend, Wisconsin, in the southeastern part of the state, followed by a stop in the northeastern Pennsylvania town of Wapwallopen.
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One day after the United States hit yet another single-day record for new coronavirus infections, Trump repeated his oft-used claim that the country is "rounding the corner."
Trump claimed that even without a vaccine, "we're still rounding the corner – we have it, but without it, we round the corner."
The president told the crowd that the vaccine will be available for free because "this wasn't your fault, this wasn't anyone's fault, this was China's fault – just remember it."
"You have to open up your states," Trump said, attacking Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. "We gotta get our governor to open up our state here, don't we? Don't worry, on November 4, they'll announce all these states, all these Democrat-run states will be open."
The statement prompted the crowd to chant "lock her up," a staple from Trump's 2016 rallies which was originally directed toward his opponent Hillary Clinton.
Earlier this month, the FBI announced that they foiled a plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer at her vacation home. Officials have charged over a dozen people in connection with the kidnapping. According to a criminal complaint, the men wanted to take Whitmer to a "secure location" in Wisconsin for a "trial."
It's a pandemic, and you're doing good," Trump said. "You gotta get this governor, you gotta get her to open."
Shifting his focus to his opponent, Trump claimed that former vice president Joe Biden will "eradicate the economy," and blasted his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, for being "America's most liberal Senator," saying "she makes Bernie look like a conservative."
The president also mocked the pronounciation of Harris' name and claimed she can't pronounce it correctly.
Looking for Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham in the crowd, after finally spotting her, the president expressed his surprise to see her wearing a mask, saying she was being "very politically correct."
"No way," the president exclaimed. "Are you wearing a mask?"
Trump claimed that if Biden is elected, "there will be no school, no graduations, no weddings, no Thanksgivings, no Christmas, no Fourth of July. There'll be no nothing. There'll be no future."
Trump also issued a number of false, incorrect claims, including saying that Biden "wants to eliminate private health care," that Michigan "went 42 years without a car plant," that he brought back the auto industry after Biden destroyed it, and that he received a "Michigan Man of the Year" award. He also pushed a baseless conspiracy theory that American health care workers are overcounting coronavirus deaths.
Before leaving the White House for the rally, Trump spoke about the size of his crowds: “We got the biggest crowds in the history of politics and I think you will all be witness to that.”
He complained that state and local officials in Minnesota have insisted he abide by a 250 cap for his rally: “25,000 people want to be there. And they say you can only have 250 people. They thought I’d cancel. But I’m not canceling and we’ll find out what happens.“
Earlier
Biden will also be in Minnesota on Friday as the two candidates swing through the Midwest in the waning days of the presidential campaign.
Trump rallies are among the nation’s biggest events being held in defiance of crowd restrictions designed to stop the virus from spreading. This at a time when public health experts are advising people to think twice even about inviting many guests for Thanksgiving dinner.
“It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, when you have congregate settings where people are crowded together and virtually no one is wearing a mask, that’s a perfect setup to have an outbreak of acquisition and transmissibility,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, recently told Yahoo News. “It’s a public health and scientific fact.”
The Trump campaign, which distributes masks and hand sanitizer at its rallies, says those who attend are peaceful protesters who, just like Black Lives Matter demonstrators, have a right to assemble. The president says he wants to get the country back to normal.
Some states have fined venues that host Trump rallies for violating caps on crowd size. But the rallies continue – even as the U.S. sees cases spike, especially in the Midwest and the Plains. The nation posted a record high number of new infections last week – nearly 500,000.
And the crowds keep turning out for Trump.
Ysabel Benejam, 69, of West Bloomfield, Michigan, drove about 90 minutes to Lansing and waited more than four hours in rainy, near-freezing temperatures to see Trump on Tuesday.
“I’m not afraid at all,” said Benejam, wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat and a mask emblazoned with “Trump 2020.” “We need to step back into normality.”
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, in contrast, has shunned rallies and instead holds online and drive-in events where people honk their horns to show support. He calls the Trump rallies “super-spreader events” and says he’s listening to the warnings of public health experts.
Pete Kingsley, 80, of Strasburg, Pennsylvania, was not wearing a mask as he approached the security line at Trump’s rally Monday in Lititz. He said he believes the virus is being hyped to hurt Trump’s chance of reelection and to “bash the economy — destroy it.”
“If I need to put a mask on, I’ll put it on,” he said. “If I don’t, I won’t put it on.”
Not all locals are happy to have Trump come to town.
Trump held a rally Sept. 25 in Newport News, Virginia, even though public health officials warned that it would violate Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s executive order generally banning gatherings of more than 250 people.
Zach Nayer, a resident at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, and a colleague later compiled county data on new coronavirus cases at Trump rally sites from late June to the Newport News event. They reviewed the number of cases for the 14 days before and after each event and published their findings on the health news site STAT.
They found that spikes in COVID-19 cases occurred in seven of the 14 cities and townships where rallies were held: Tulsa, Oklahoma; Phoenix; Old Forge, Pennsylvania; Bemidji and Mankato in Minnesota; and Oshkosh and Weston, Wisconsin.
The researchers acknowledged, however, that increased caseloads could not be definitely linked to the rallies.
“We’ve had a huge increase in cases in the past six to eight weeks,” said Judy Burrows, public information officer for the health department in Marathon County, which includes Weston, Wisconsin.
She said the department is far behind in processing individual cases and has not been able to do a complete job in tracing back to where people contracted the virus. A lot of people in the community are attending mass gatherings, but the health department doesn’t have data suggesting that one is more to blame than another, she said.
“It’s not about Trump. It’s not about Biden or anyone else running for office right now,” Burrows said. “The problem is people are going to places where there are lots of other people. They’re not masking. They’re not social distancing. They’re not doing the kinds of things that can slow the spread.”
The Trump rallies have irked Democrats in battleground states, including Christopher Gibbs, a farmer in Maplewood, Ohio, who voted for Trump in 2016 but now supports Biden.
Gibbs is president of a new group called Rural America 2020. which sponsored dozens of billboards around the country to elevate issues important to rural residents. After the president returned to the campaign trail, the group decided to repurpose the billboards and use them to warn residents about the risks of his events.
The group also had a plane tow a long banner over Omaha, Nebraska, before Tuesday’s rally there. It said: “Warning! Superspreader Trump Visiting NE. Mask Up!”
In Minnesota, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said he was “deeply disappointed” to learn that compliance with the state’s masking and social distancing guidance was poor at Vice President Mike Pence’s rally Monday in the city of Hibbing.
The Trump campaign paid $1,000 to get the rally site, according to a contract with the airport that included a provision that the rally conform to Minnesota restrictions. Hibbing police estimated the crowd at 650 — well beyond the state’s 250-person limit due to COVID-19.
The Minnesota Department of Health says 24 coronavirus cases have been reported among people who attended large Trump campaign events in the state, including 16 at a rally in Bemidji The department said four more cases were reported among anti-Trump protesters who attended the Bemidji rally.
With four days until the election and more than 80 million votes already cast, time is running out for Trump and Biden to change the shape of the race. Biden is leading most national polls and has a narrow advantage in the critical battlegrounds that could decide the race.
That’s why both men zeroed in on Florida on Thursday. While Biden has a path to victory without the critical battleground state, Trump’s reelection bid would almost certainly be blocked if he loses there.
Trump on Thursday celebrated a new federal estimate that the economy grew at a stunning 33.1% annual rate in the July-September quarter — by far the largest quarterly gain on record — making up ground from its epic plunge in the spring, when the eruption of the coronavirus closed businesses and threw tens of millions of people out of work.
“So glad this great GDP number came out before November 3rd,” Trump tweeted, predicting a dire reversal if Biden is elected.
But economists warned that the economy is already weakening again and facing renewed threats as confirmed viral cases surge, hiring has slowed and federal stimulus help has mostly run out.
Trump is banking on local news coverage of his rallies to overcome a substantial advertising deficit stemming from a late cash crunch. Biden and his allies are outspending Trump and his backers by a more than 3-1 ratio in Florida – about $23 million to about $7 million – in the final push to Election Day, according to data from ad tracking firm Kantar/CMAG.
The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, launched its closing message to voters Thursday, not mentioning Trump, in an apparent aim to help GOP candidates up and down the ballot with a focus on traditional Republican messages around lowering taxes and health care.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.