Kamala Harris has ridiculed Donald Trump over his obsession with crowd sizes, breaking into laughter as she mentioned gathering 100,000 people at one of her recent campaign events in Washington, D.C.
Speaking during a rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Thursday, the Democratic candidate said: “You may have seen [that] I talked in Washington, D.C., the other day. You know, he likes to compare crowds. I had 100,000 people there.” As she mentioned the size of the crowd gathered to hear her talk, Harris broke into a chuckle.
Crowd size has become a big talking point in the 2024 election campaign, as the issue of just how many supporters each candidate is capable of gathering at their rallies seems to rile Trump—and Democrats enjoy teasing him about it.
During his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, former president Barack Obama mocked Trump for his “weird obsession” with crowd sizes. During the one and only debate between the two candidates in September, Trump fell for Harris’ bait and started arguing with her about the size of his crowds, derailing the discussion away from topics like immigration and the economy.
Kamala Harris during a rally at the Craig Ranch Amphitheater in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 31, 2024, and Donald Trump at a rally at Lee’s Family Forum in Henderson, Nevada, on October 31, 2024. She ridiculed her rival over his obsession with crowd sizes.
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Trump has consistently stated that crowds attending his events are much bigger than that those present at Harris’ rallies, though his claims have often appeared exaggerated.
With her comment on Thursday, Harris was referring to the rally she held at the Ellipse on October 29 as the official “closing argument” for her campaign. The site of her speech was the same place where Trump addressed his supporters ahead of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Her campaign reported that 75,000 people were at the event, during which Harris vowed to be a president for everyday Americans if elected, while she claimed Trump would be a “petty tyrant” focused on “revenge” against his political enemies. The Washington Post reported that thousands of people were lining up hours ahead of the event to see Harris in one of the last speeches of her campaign before election day.
Jay Ulfelder, a political scientist running Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation’s Crowd Counting Consortium, told The Washingtonian that according to his calculations the figures provided by Harris’ campaign were accurate. Photos of the event also seem to confirm the numbers provided by the vice president’s campaign.
Harris’ rally followed Trump’s closing arguments at Madison Square Garden on October 27, an event marred by Tony Hinchcliffe’s infamous “floating island of garbage” comment about Puerto Rico. Trump’s campaign said the event was filled to capacity—which is a maximum of 19,500 people.
Newsweek contacted both campaigns for comment by email on Friday outside of normal working hours.
