Donald Trump’s Crowd Size Raises Questions

Former President Donald Trump is known to boast about the size of the crowds at his events, and his rally in the New Jersey on Saturday was no different.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, spoke before a crowd of tens of thousands of people who gathered on the beach in the town of Wildwood, repeatedly blaming President Joe Biden for the criminal charges he is facing as he seeks to reclaim the White House in November, according to The Associated Press and The New York Times.

But Trump and his team said the crowd had exceeded 100,000. “You can’t even see the back, there’s so many people here,” Trump told attendees.

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told Newsweek on Sunday that “over 100,000 people patriots” had shown up to hear Trump speak.

Lisa Fagan, spokesperson for the city of Wildwood, told the AP that she estimated that between 80,000 and 100,000 attended the rally, based off her own observations on the scene.

However, some on social media questioned those numbers—and others reported that many attendees left the event before Trump had finished speaking.

Aliya Schneider, a reporter with The Philadelphia Inquirer, posted videos showing some attendees leaving the rally while Trump was still speaking.

“Trump is still speaking, but the crowd has been thinning. People have been walking out back to the boardwalk,” Schneider wrote in one post.

Alongside another video, Schneider added: “The back section of the crowd is noticeably smaller as people continue to leave while Trump is still speaking.”

USA Today reporter Zac Anderson posted a video showing much of the crowd had gone while Trump was still delivering his remarks.

“Trump is still speaking in Wildwood but much of the crowd has left. It’s cold and he’s been speaking 90 minutes. This whole area was full of people when Trump started,” Anderson wrote.

Several of Trump’s allies took to social media to rave about the size of the crowd in Wildwood.

“Trump’s New Jersey rally probably had more people in attendance than Joe Biden has spoken to this entire year… assuming we don’t count the many voices in Biden’s head,” Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote: “There’s nothing like a Trump rally! The American people are energized and ready to reelect President Trump in November. Look at these crowds!!”

But social media users compared aerial photos of the crowd in Wildwood with other events that drew huge amounts of people to question the size of Saturday’s crowd.

One X account posted a photo of a Taylor Swift concert with more than 70,000 attendees with the Trump rally, writing: “Trump in Wildwood, crowd NOT EVEN CLOSE TO 73,000.”

Another person wrote: “On the left is a crowd of 100,000 people at an Obama rally in St. Louis. On the right is a photo of Trump’s NJ rally. Don’t let them gaslight you.”

Another account shared a photo of a packed arena, saying it had a capacity of 19,000. “Some perspective,” they wrote. “This is what 19,000 people looks like. That Jersey crowd is nowhere near 19,000, no less 80,000!”