Former President Donald Trump was in Latrobe, Pennsylvania outside of Pittsburgh on Saturday night in an attempt to fire up Republican voters and boost candidates Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano ahead of Tuesday’s pivitol midterm elections.
For a share of the crowd, however, it seems that Mr Trump’s pitch may have fallen flat.
“Trump complained that ‘the media never turn the cameras around’ so I did and saw half the crowd at this PA rally had left thirty minutes before it ended,” Univision reporter Fabiola Galindo Sawao tweeted while covering the event.
Mr Trump has throughout his political career made an issue of the extent to which the media has covered the size of the crowds that have come to hear him speak. This is not the first time, however, that a Trump crowd has thinned in the midst of one of the former president’s long speeches.
Detroit Free Press reporter Paul Egan tweeted that a crowd at the Macomb College Sports & Expo Center in Michigan also thinned considerably while Mr Trump was speaking at a rally there in October.
“There’s also been a steady stream of attendees heading for the exits since about the 15-minute mark of this now hour-long and ongoing speech,” Egan tweeted. “Former President Trump said a few words about the #MIGOP candidates and launched into familiar grievances[.]”
Mr Trump, who is reportedly considering launching another presidential campaign in the coming weeks, has plenty on the line in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
The former president endorsed his fellow former television host Mr Oz in an intensely competitive Republican primary for the US Senate in the state, and is hoping that Mr Oz can best Lieutenant Gov John Fetterman in a race critical for Republican hopes of re-taking the Senate.
Polls show Mr Oz and Mr Fetterman locked in a tight battle to replace the retiring Sen Pat Toomey, even though a majority of Pennsylvania voters believe that Mr Oz, who reportedly owns ten houses, does not understand the concerns of voters like them.
Mr Trump’s endorsement of Mr Mastriano, meanwhile, looks certain to backfire. The far right state state legislator who was at the US Capitol on January 6 of last year, has trailed by wide margins in public polling of the governor’s race against Democratic nominee Josh Shapiro.
The Democrats held several large, star-studded rallies of their own in Pennsylvania over the weekend, with President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and Sen Bernie Sanders all appearing in the state to help get out the vote for Mr Fetterman and Mr Shapiro.
