Vice President Kamala Harris held her best-attended political rally ever alongside former President Barack Obama in Georgia on Thursday.
Around 20,000 people attended a packed rally for the vice president at James R. Hallford Stadium in Clarkston, according to a Reuter’s report citing the Harris campaign. The second largest political rally for Harris was attended by approximately 17,000 supporters in Greensboro, North Carolina, early last month.
The seated capacity of Thursday’s rally venue, which often hosts outdoor high school sporting events, is listed at 15,600. However, images and videos of the Harris rally shared online appear to show some of the boisterous crowd standing on the field, making the campaign’s attendance numbers feasible.
In addition to Obama, Bruce Springsteen was featured at the rally and performed briefly before the former president and the vice president took the stage. Clarkston is located in DeKalb County, which is one of the most Democratic-leaning counties in Georgia, with over 83 percent of voters having backed President Joe Biden in 2020.
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Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the campaign of former President Donald Trump, said in an email to Newsweek that Harris had to “play second fiddle” to Springsteen to bolster her crowd size.
“Kamala Harris had to drag out and play second fiddle to Bruce Springsteen to help bolster her crowd size,” Cheung wrote. “Meanwhile President Trump is the star of the show and has commanded over 100,000 people at his rallies.”
While Trump is often seemingly fixated on rally crowd size, there is no evidence to support repeated claims by the former president that his rallies have been attended by 100,000 or more supporters.
Earlier on Thursday, former Trump headlined a rally in front of a smaller but enthusiastic crowd in Tempe, Arizona. The event at the 5,000-seat indoor Mullett Arena appeared to be at or near capacity in images shared on social media.
Trump’s Deputy Director of Communications Margo Martin posted a video to X that showed a cheerful crowd as the former president took the stage, while some supporters of the former president touted the crowd size in other posts.
“THOUSANDS of AZ patriots lined up to see Trump in TEMPE!” wrote Turning Point Action’s Jacob Chacon. “This is on Arizona State’s campus, in one of the strongest Democrat strongholds in the state. Game changing.”
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Harris campaign via email on Thursday night.
The candidates appear to be destined for a close race in at least seven swing states that could potentially determine the election’s winner, including Arizona and Georgia. Recent polls of Arizona and Georgia have largely shown Trump holding small leads over Harris, although Harris has been leading in some surveys.
Averages of recent polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight showed Trump up by 1.7 percentage points in Arizona and 1.5 points in Georgia as of Thursday evening. While Trump’s advantages were small, they represented the biggest current leads for either candidate in any of the battleground states.
