Trump campaign officials were reportedly concerned
about how much of a crowd would show up for his rally tomorrow in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, which has now been postponed.
Before the announcement
:
Trump tries
to avoid Tulsa repeat with New Hampshire rally
This is
Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.
Donald
Trump plans to hold a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, tomorrow,
and his campaign is eager to avoid the terrible optics of his recent rally in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, where thousands of seats went unfilled.
A campaign
official told NBC News, “We can’t have a repeat of Tulsa.”
NBC News
reports:
Instead of
opting for an indoor venue, as it did in Tulsa, the Trump campaign selected an
open-air airport tarmac hangar to minimize its footprint Saturday and to
appease health experts who stress that outdoor events are safer, although mass
gatherings are still considered risky.
Officials
say similar adjustments are being discussed for the Republican National
Convention, which is set to take place at the end of August in an arena in
Jacksonville, Florida, that can hold 15,000 people.
But the
campaign is clearly still moving ahead with the rally, despite concerns about
how his Tulsa event may have contributed to a recent surge in new cases of
coronavirus there.
A top
health official in Tulsa said Trump’s rally “likely contributed” to the recent
rise in new cases, but White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany downplayed
those concerns yesterday.
The AP
reports:
The
Portsmouth rally was scheduled after aides spent weeks studying what went wrong
in Tulsa three weeks ago. It was billed as a massive, defiant return to the
political stage but instead produced a humiliating sea of empty seats and
questions about the campaign’s ability to attract people to large events in a
pandemic. ...
It was
unclear how many people would attend the New Hampshire rally, campaign
officials acknowledged. Conceding that another sparse crowd would raise
questions about the future of Trump’s rallies, the campaign [had] taken
additional steps to make attendees feel safe. ...
[W]hile
masks were distributed in Tulsa, few rallygoers wore them after weeks of Trump
deriding their use. This time, the campaign [had] strongly encouraged their
use.
Some New
Hampshire officials had called on Republican governor Chris Sununu to issue a
statewide mask requirement in the days leading up to the rally, but Sununu
refused to do so.
FacebookTwitter
16m ago
17:39
The
announcement that Trump’s rally in New Hampshire tomorrow will be postponed
comes weeks after the president’s Tulsa rally saw disappointing turnout.
Campaign
officials told NBC News that they were determined to avoid “a repeat of Tulsa,”
when thousands of seats in the indoor arena chosen for the rally went unfilled.
Instead,
the campaign planned to hold tomorrow’s rally in Potsmouth at an open-air
airport tarmac hangar to mitigate concerns about the spread of coronavirus at
the event.
However,
the large event still raised alarms with local officials, and Republican
governor Chris Sununu said he would not attend the event out of an abundance of
caution.
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24m ago
17:31
The announcement that the Trump campaign rally in New
Hampshire was being delayed due to weather struck one local meteorologist as
odd, considering the forecast for tomorrow night is currently party cloudy and
78 degrees.
FacebookTwitter
29m ago
17:26
The Trump
campaign has confirmed that tomorrow’s planned rally in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, has been delayed because of a tropical storm headed for the region.
“The rally
scheduled for Saturday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire has been postponed for
safety reasons because of Tropical Storm Fay. It will be rescheduled and a new
date will be announced soon,” communications director Tim Murtaugh said in a
statement.
Some local
New Hampshire officials had criticized Trump for the planned rally because of
the pandemic, but the campaign and the White House press secretary both said
the cancellation was due to weather, not coronavirus.
FacebookTwitter
41m ago
17:14
Trump's New
Hampshire rally delayed due to weather
The
president’s planned rally tomorrow in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has been
delayed due to weather.
White House
press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters aboard Air Force One that the
event would be delayed “a week or two” because of a “big storm” headed for the
region.
The rally
was supposed to take place partly outdoors -- reportedly because the
president’s advisers were trying to avoid a repeat of his Tulsa rally, when
thousands of seats in the indoor arena went unfilled.
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