50,000 people attend Donald Trump’s sizable rally in South Carolina

The former president spoke to a sizable audience assembled in the streets of a tiny South Carolina community on a scorching July Saturday, making a return to the large-scale rallies of his prior presidential campaigns.

Trump told a cheering throng in downtown Pickens on Saturday as temperatures soared into the 90s, “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be to kick off the Fourth of July weekend than right here on Main Street, with thousands of hardworking South Carolina patriots who believe in God, family, and country.”

The conservative Upstate community’s 3,400-person police force is led by Randal J. Beach, who on Sunday told The Associated Press that his estimates of the crowd “were somewhere between 50-55,000.”

In an effort to garner support for South Carolina’s first-in-the-South presidential primary, the region is popular with GOP candidates.

Along with the two South Carolinians running for president, former governor Nikki Haley and senator Tim Scott, other contenders in the campaign have recently hosted rallies in the Upstate, including Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former vice president Mike Pence, and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

But none attracted as much attention as Trump, whose arrival essentially shut down Pickens’ classic Southern downtown.

Trump’s 2024 campaign has been quite different from his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, which brought thousands to rallies in states around the nation.

Trump hosted his first South Carolina campaign rally inside the Statehouse in Columbia earlier this year instead of in a gym or an aircraft hangar. He introduced his state leadership team in an invitation-only gathering in the opulent foyer between the House and Senate chambers.

As he attempts to improve his status among delegates and local leaders, the former president has concentrated his efforts in other states on smaller gatherings, such as a series of remarks before state party organizations.

Trump has only previously held two sizable rallies throughout the 2024 election. He spoke at a rally in Waco, Texas, in March, criticizing the prosecutors who were looking into him at the time for hush-money allegations (for which he was eventually charged) and declaring his vindication. Due to tornado concerns, an outdoor gathering that was scheduled for Iowa in May was postponed.

Although Trump has continued to raise millions of dollars via fundraisers after being indicted in New York and facing federal charges for keeping secret papers after leaving the White House, the rallies are also costly to stage.

The rallies “cost half a million dollars a pop,” senior Trump staffer Chris LaCivita said in an interview with the conservative podcast Ruthless last month.

In an effort to demonstrate Trump’s popularity among supporters despite the many legal difficulties, his campaign has also focused on surprise trips at restaurants, such as at Versailles, a well-known Cuban restaurant in Miami, or at a famed Philadelphia cheesesteak restaurant on Friday.

Trump’s team has cited surveys showing him with a significant lead over his opponents in a wide GOP field that has continued to expand, despite a campaign pace that is significantly less active than many of his competitors.

He has also participated in several multi-candidate gatherings during the primary season, including this past week’s Moms for Liberty meeting in Philadelphia, and has given numerous media interviews.

Nevertheless, hundreds of people traveled from all over the Southeast to the event on Saturday, with some travelling as far as Florida for the opportunity to meet the former president in person. Greg Pressley and his wife, Robin, said they traveled more than three hours to see the candidate they’ve backed since his initial bid in 2016.

Greg Pressley proclaimed Donald Trump to be the greatest president in history. I like his policies. I adore the guy. I’m here to help him get back to where he should be in the first place.

According to Spartanburg resident Shelley Fox, who has backed Trump ever since he joined the 2016 campaign, it wasn’t essential for her to consider any other candidates for the presidency in 2018.

When asked what she would do if she had to consider another candidate, she said, “I’d write him in.” “Without a doubt, I’d put him in.”