Trump rallies shrinking from packed stadiums to nearly full high school gyms

President Donald Trump's midterm rallies are drawing far smaller crowds than the events that powered his rise a decade ago, with some held in high school gyms.

Trump, who has called his rallies "hotter than ever," lashed out Monday at reports that he was struggling to draw crowds, insisting, "I never have empty seats," but an analysis by The Daily Beast's investigative unit PunchUp found that his latest stops have been held in venues much smaller than the ones he filled during his first campaign, with crowds up to 75 percent smaller.

In Mobile, Alabama, about 30,000 people turned out during his first run for president at a stadium with room for more than 40,000 for one of the defining rallies of Trump's 2015 campaign, according to city officials at the time. When he returned Friday, he spoke at an arena that holds about 10,000, and local media reported roughly 8,000 attended, a drop of about 73 percent.

In Vandalia, Ohio, about 10,000 people attended a 2016 rally in an airplane hangar. On Saturday, Trump spoke at Butler High School's Student Activity Center, which holds about 4,500. The Washington Post reported that more than 4,000 people turned out, less than half the crowd from a decade earlier.

At a 2024 event in Vandalia, Trump bragged, "We get 25,000, 30,000 people, a small rally is 20,000 people." The building he used Saturday could hold fewer than a quarter of that.

Not every stop came up short. Trump's rally at the Choctaw Event Center in Durant, Oklahoma, reached capacity, and some supporters couldn't get in, according to local reporting. In Grand Island, Nebraska, about 5,800 people packed the Pinnacle Bank Expo Center on Monday, the maximum the fire department allows. Supporters began lining up the night before, and lines wrapped around the building.

Still, the Durant venue was set up for about 4,000 people and the Grand Island venue held about 5,800, well short of the 20,000 Trump once called a small rally.

A source close to Trump noted that this is a midterm campaign rather than a presidential one. A Republican National Committee spokesman insisted the smaller venues did not reflect waning enthusiasm, saying Trump and Vice President JD Vance were "activating voters in strategic areas of the country to boost Republican candidates ahead of the midterms."

White House communications director Steven Cheung wrote Sunday that the last four events had drawn "some of the most enthusiastic and hot crowds I've ever seen," and White House spokesman Davis Ingle called the rallies "electrifying and wildly popular."

There's still little polling to measure the tour's impact. But the rallies come as Democrats hold an advantage of about 9 points in national generic-ballot averages, and Republicans face unexpectedly competitive races in Ohio, Texas and Nebraska – all states Trump carried comfortably in 2024.