Donald Trump’s return to the site of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, was met with a huge crowd over the weekend, a fact the former president has been sharing repeatedly since.
The former president was at the same site where Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate him on July 13. The gunman killed former volunteer fireman Cory Comperatore.
During a recent podcast interview and at another rally in Pennsylvania this week, Trump claimed that as many as 100,000 people turned up to see him, a figure that Newsweek has examined in detail.
Donald Trump holds up his fist as he walks offstage at the end of a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds on October 05, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump has repeatedly claimed the event attracted 100,000 people.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The Claim
At a rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, October 9, 2024, Donald Trump said: “We had over 100,000 people…100,000 people on Saturday night.”
In an interview on Andrew Schulz’s Flagrant podcast, posted on October 9, 2024, Trump said: “We had 100,000, more than 100,000 people.”
The Facts
The Butler rally was held at the Butler Farm Showgrounds in Pennsylvania. While security precautions changed between the event in October and the assassination attempt in July, the site structure did not seem to change between the two events.
A site map presented by the House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump showed the site’s size in July was about the same as that last weekend. While that hearing did not mention the site’s capacity in July, it stated an attendee estimate of about 15,000 people.
Multiple aerial site photos show a railed security screening area on the east side, with the stage, seating, and other infrastructure on the west. The stage was in front of three warehouse buildings.
Attendance estimates ranged from 24,000 to 80,000, the latter according to some attendees. Author and Trump supporter Nick Adams suggested the night before that event would attract 100,000 “patriots” but did not explain how.
Donald Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told Newsweek that 105,000 people “showed up” but did not say how the figures were verified.
Based on photos from the site, crowd mapping software, and expert analysis, there appears to be no evidence there were 100,000 people on the site. The exact number is likely to have been tens of thousands fewer.
Using the website, MapChecking.com, Newsweek plotted the Butler rally perimeter and estimated the crowd size. The plot includes sections that were not filled with crowds, such as the stands behind Trump’s stage, the stage itself, vehicles, and infrastructure on the site.
Using this estimate, only around 94,000 would fit if every part of it were packed in, with four people per square meter.
However, photos and videos from the event showed that was not the case. Apart from the obstructions already mentioned, the area around the stage was seated, further limiting the capacity. Tents, engineering infrastructure, and space for people to enter and exit the crowd would have further limited the size.
Professor Steve Doig of Arizona State University, a data journalist with decades of experience in crowd estimations, told Newsweek that four people per square meter was “scary mosh pit density.” The seated areas alone, Doig said, would have limited density there to “at most” two people per square meter.
Although Newsweek has been unable to find aerial photos of when Trump spoke, Doig said his estimate was about closer to 30,000, a figure near to reporting from CBS.
“If your [MapChecking.com] polygon of about 24,000 sq meters is filled at two persons per sqm, then that gets you to a max capacity of at most about 50,000,” Doig said.
“However, crowds tend to thin the farther away the outliers are from the action, and the aerial doesn’t show seating being set up past the bank of speakers.
“With all that considered, my reality-based estimate would be closer to 30,000.”
Supporters gather at a campaign rally for Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, at the Butler Farm Show Grounds on October 5, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump claims there were 100k people at the event.
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
While photos taken when Trump took the stage show a packed crowd, the same issues with crowd density and obstructions still exist.
Newsweek contacted the U.S. Secret Service, Pennsylvania State Police, and Butler County Sheriff’s Office for estimates. Only the Secret Service replied, saying it did not “do crowd estimates.”
Based on a crowd density average of about 2.5 people per square meter, which experts say is a “good estimate for public events such as parades“, MapChecking.com estimates the total site capacity is 57,000.
That number, again, does not account for site infrastructure, moving vs static crowd density (i.e. the amount of space a person takes up moving compared to someone standing still), or how crowd densities loosen the further they are from the stage. Therefore, the actual figure was likely to have been much lower.
In any case, there is insufficient evidence that 100,000 people attended the rally. Newsweek has contacted a Trump media representative via email for further comment.
Trump’s reputation for overestimating his crowd sizes has become a running feature of his political campaigning. Last month, Newsweek’s Fact Check team debunked three back-to-back claims he made during a rally in Michigan.
The Ruling
False.
There is no evidence that there were 100,000 people when Trump returned to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of his first assassination attempt in July.
Newsweek’s estimates based on site and aerial photos show that even if attendees were packed in, without obstructions, at “scary mosh pit density” the total site capacity would still have been less than 100,000.
The figure was almost certainly less than 57,000, based on estimates calculated using crowd density software.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team
