This week, large, enthusiastic crowds cheered Kamala Harris, mirroring those seen during the travels of her Republican rival Donald Trump, foreshadowing a welcome paradigm shift for the Democratic camp.
In Philadelphia on Tuesday, 14,000 ecstatic spectators were waiting for the vice president. The next day, in Eau Claire, a small town in Wisconsin, a never-ending line of cars heading to one of her rallies made the rounds on social media.
For Donald Trump, the images are nothing out of the ordinary. But for Kamala Harris, who is on a whirlwind campaign for the White House after Joe Biden’s shock withdrawal in July, the enthusiasm illustrates a shift.
“Everyone is really excited,” said Kina Johnson, 46, an employee of the carmaker Stellantis, who was among thousands of people in a large hangar at an airfield in Detroit, Michigan, on Wednesday to see Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz.
The crowd even spilled onto the tarmac. These gatherings will “get bigger” and gain momentum, she adds.
Tim Walz even seemed stunned by this human tide. It was “the largest gathering of this campaign,” he declared, with the campaign team estimating the number of participants at 15,000.
Less than three months before the election in which she will face Donald Trump, Kamala Harris seems to have caught up with her camp and generated a lot of enthusiasm on the ground.
Trump’s annoyance
The turnout and enthusiasm are reminiscent of the Barack Obama era and stand in stark contrast to rallies held by President Joe Biden this year or in 2020, during a presidential campaign stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
He, like Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, has never managed to compete with the shows of force of Donald Trump, whose supporters sometimes even camp out on site to secure a front-row seat.
A contrast often mocked by the Republican candidate, who assures that the support of the crowds is found in the ballot boxes.
But the tide is turning. Kamala Harris sold out a 10,000-seat stadium in Atlanta, in the key state of Georgia, in late July with two guest rap stars on stage.
A few days later, on the same stage and in front of a similar crowd, Donald Trump accused his rival of having faced “many empty seats.”
“I don’t need artists,” the Republican said, before accusing the Democrat of paying her supporters.
“No one (other than me, editor’s note) has ever addressed larger crowds,” Donald Trump assured again on Thursday, expanding on the subject at length during a press conference.
“They say, ‘Oh, the crowd was so big’ (for Kamala Harris). But I’ve had crowds that were ten times, twenty times, thirty times bigger,” he said.
Advantage
“The fact that Trump’s rallies drew much larger crowds than Biden’s in 2020 or Clinton’s in 2016 was a point of pride for his supporters,” said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
This visible advantage has also fueled false claims that the 2020 election was won by Donald Trump and not Joe Biden.
But “now that Mme “With Harris speaking to crowds that rival or exceed Mr. Trump’s in numbers, that reason to believe that Trump is the more advantaged candidate disappears,” Mr. Burden continues.
The candidate also did not hesitate to adopt some of the tempestuous billionaire’s codes.
When he was president, Donald Trump used the presidential plane Air Force One as a campaign prop, disembarking from the legendary plane to the awe-inspiring eyes of his supporters.
On Wednesday, the Democrat flew to her rally in Detroit aboard Air Force Two, the vice presidential plane.
Kamala Harris is also playing on the patriotic chord. The chants of “USA! USA!” that commonly accompany Donald Trump’s appearances were heard at the Democrat’s rally in Philadelphia.
Welcoming this “very real” enthusiasm, Robby Mook, former campaign manager for Hillary Clinton, warned Thursday on MSNBC that it will nevertheless be necessary to “maintain” this momentum: “Energizing our base will not be enough.”