Trump stokes culture wars, but low turnout mars Tulsa campaign rally

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump returned to one of his favorite pastimes on Saturday night: Headlining a big, brash Trump campaign rally.

After three months without a major campaign event, Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma was billed as a sort of reunion for the president and his most ardent supporters, some of whom had been waiting in line for days to be sure they got a seat.

For Trump and his inner circle, the promise of a raucous, jam-packed MAGA rally in a deep red state was seen as an opportunity for the president to put the calamitous spring of 2020 behind him, to fire up his army of loyal supporters, and to give his flagging reelection campaign a shot in the arm.

Talking up the rally last week, Trump said nearly a million people had requested tickets to attend. “We have a 22,000-seat arena, but I think we’re going to also take the convention hall next door, and that’s going to hold 40,000 … We expect to have a record-setting crowd. We’ve never had an empty seat, and we certainly won’t in Oklahoma.”

But they did have empty seats. Approximately 13,000 of them, according to the Tulsa Fire Marshal, who counted slightly less than 6,200 attendees at the 19,000-seat Bank of Oklahoma Arena on Saturday night. 

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/21/trump-stokes-culture-wars-but-low-turnout-mars-tulsa-campaign-rally.html