Global Courant
PICKENS, SC — Donald Trump built his 2016 campaign on the ability to pack supporters into arenas and fields. During his first rally in early 2024, he took possession of a small town.
Trump took over the movie-set-like Main Street of a town of 3,300 in the South Carolina hills on Saturday, showing a show of power not only in his stronghold of rural America, but also in an early primary state where he remains dominant.
In front of an estimated 20,000 people, Trump stormed into the home state territory of two of his main opponents, Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scot. The size of Trump’s audience — and the fervor of it — was the latest ominous sign not only for them, but also for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s biggest rival, who is desperately trying to take off part of Trump’s base. to peel in this scoop. South primary state.
In the concert-like atmosphere — with thousands standing for hours and dozens getting sick from the July heat — Trump once again seemed to dwarf the field.
“It was hardworking patriots like you who built this country, and it’s hardworking patriots like you who are going to save our country,” Trump told the crowd, accompanied by a dramatic musical score.
A sweat-soaked woman lifted her red Gatorade into the air and swayed to the music. A man in a wheelchair took off his shirt to bear the heat.
“2024 is our last battle,” Trump continued. “Under our leadership, the forgotten men and women will no longer be forgotten.”
People flocked, both from surrounding counties and other states, to catch a glimpse of the twice-indicted former president, whose presence in the 3-square-mile city closed businesses and strained municipal resources. Trump seized on the city’s long-planned annual Independence Day festival, announcing the gathering two weeks ago after Trump’s team — with the help of Republican elected officials in the state — convinced the city to agree to closures of the secret service around the main business district.
It was in stark contrast to the event DeSantis held in South Carolina last week — a more subdued affair where he answered questions at a community center in North Augusta.
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In Pickens, vendors pitched their tents days in advance, and local homeowners tried to rent out parking spaces in their front yards for $50. Some of those present slept outside the entrance gate at night. The line to get in snaked through the city center on Saturday as the enterprising folks sold camping chairs, bottled water and hot dogs. Collectors ripped up cardboard boxes to make fans, and the Trump campaign frantically passed around pallets of water and Gatorade to hydrate the crowd.
Around 11 a.m., as the Trump-branded plane flew overhead, the street erupted in cheers. The school choir from Greenville that was recently stopped singing the national anthem in the rotunda of the US Capitol performed. sen. Lindsay Graham (RS.C.), who has supported Trump, has been repeatedly drowned out by boos.
“I was open,” Tena Stark, a Pickens native who now lives in Tennessee, said of her thinking about the Republican primary field. But my decision is now made. I feel like he is the strongest man for the job.”
Her husband, Bruce, said Trump was the only one who could get him to travel for four hours, showing up at 4:45 a.m. to stand in the heat for a rally. Omitting DeSantis’ name for a moment, he said he likes the Florida nominee but thinks DeSantis needs “more time” to be prepared for the job of president.
Trump could hardly have chosen a more favorable location for his rally. Pickens County supported Trump more than any other part of South Carolina in the 2020 election, with Trump receiving nearly 75 percent of the vote. But his appearance here was a shot across the bow in a critical primary condition with two homegrown contenders.
Haley, the state’s former governor, and Scott, the current junior senator, are under intense pressure to perform well on their home turf. And unlike the other early states — where Trump also dominates the polls — South Carolina is one where the former president has strong establishment support. He has secured the approval of the state’s governor, senior senator and three congressmen — something statewide and federally elected Republicans have so far refrained from doing in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
“This state elects presidents,” former lieutenant governor Andre Bauer, who has also supported Trump, said from the podium. “When we come together and show this kind of support for an individual, it speaks volumes about the final nominee.”
By the time Trump took the stage, the crowd was already thinning out, with an apparent exodus of his supporters in need of shade, cold drinks and a break from the blistering sun.
Walter Ford, who operates Main Street Pizzeria, initially tried using Facebook to pre-sell parking spaces at his business and considered selling pizza by the slice to passersby, but eventually gave up and decided “take the loss” by closing. Ford said he was not upset and called the rally a “historic event for our small town”.
It was also a major glitch. The Pickens police chief told the local newspaper that his officers had to study “every parking lot in this town” to figure out how to accommodate the huge crowd. And, notably, Trump himself called the Pickens County Courier last week for a exclusive interview to the weekly paper and called Pickens “my area.”
“Those are the people I love,” Trump told reporter Jason Evans. “We will break some records. We will break them together.”
Trump held his first rally of the 2024 race in Waco, Texas, in March, but Trump’s rally here was his first in an early nomination state after a rally scheduled for Iowa in May was canceled at the last minute due to weather conditions.
In his speech on Saturday, which was to be followed by the city’s regularly scheduled weekend festivities and Independence Day fireworks, Trump elaborated on his grievances about multiple criminal cases pending against him. Trump spoke for more than an hour and ranted at President Joe Biden, briefly criticizing DeSantis, eliciting mild jeers as he attacked DeSantis’ record in agriculture.
It was the latest in a series of elaborate Fourth of July events Trump has participated in in recent years, such as his Mount Rushmore speech in 2020 and his “Salute to America” event on the National Mall in 2019, making him the first president to give an Independence Day speech there in 68 years.
Nate Leupp, the former Greenville County Republican Party chairman, said that mere curiosity about logistics and how Pickens would pull off the event prompted some Republicans he knew to go.
“This outdoor in a small rural town has a lot of people interested in it,” Leupp said ahead of the rally. “I’ve heard that a lot of people want to go for that very reason.”
