Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally gives him the attention he wants

republican presidential candidate donald trump On Sunday he will use one of the largest stages in the largest city in the country to take one of his last turns in the tight race for 2024 for the White House.

It’s a classic Trump move to launch an eye-catching campaign event at a venue that bills itself as “The Most Famous Stadium in the World”: Madison Square Garden. Also in classic Trump style, it’s a strategic decision that perplexes seasoned political types who wonder why the former president would focus his limited time and resources, as the clock ticks toward Election Day on Nov. 5, on traveling to a seemingly safe Democratic state like New York.

Trump and his advisers say there are good reasons to hold this rally on the penultimate weekend of the presidential campaign. His Mastery of the media and his ability to attract attention have always been fundamental to his success, and a hallmark of his fame that began in New York in the 1980s. That is an essential ingredient that he seeks to continue capturing in his career. against Kamala Harriswho brought new energy and his own wave of positive press since catapulting to the top of the Democratic ticket this summer President Joe Biden’s decision to fulfill only one mandate.

“It’s MSG, it’s Madison Square Garden,” Trump said recently on FOX News Radio’s “The Brian Kilmeade Show,” adding, “Those words mean a lot, Madison Square Garden, right? Don’t you think so?”

Sunday’s rally comes after a steady series of events in which Trump has regained the spotlight., from working in the fryer and delivering meals last Saturday at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania for questioning Harris’ racial identityspreading debunked claims about Haitian immigrants who eat pets and make terrible threats about the “enemy within” and talking about Arnold Palmer’s genitals. while visiting the late golf legend’s hometown, about an hour from Pittsburgh.

Those measures and many more may have helped maintain the polls in the presidential campaign. neck and neck was approaching the home stretch, even as frustrating some in the Republican Party for taking Trump of his main talking points on the economy and immigration. Now the Republican candidate is heading into one of his few remaining campaign days away from swing states, which has some political observers dumbfounded even as his team says it’s a smart strategy to get media attention. will broadcast throughout the country.

“It doesn’t make strategic sense,” said Trump biographer Tim O’Brien, who wrote ‘Trump Nation: The Art of Being Donald.’ He added: “This is just King Kong scaling the Empire State Building again.”

A historic place for a historic election

Madison Square Garden (there have been four stadiums with the same name at three different sites in Manhattan since 1879) has long been a landmark of choice for artists and politicians. Trump will join former presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon on the Garden playlist.

The current MSG, opened in 1968, has hosted events dating back to 1971 “Fight of the century” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier to political conventions that nominated Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush en route to White House victories. It is the home of New York Knicks basketball and New York Rangers hockey.

The former garden also hosted an infamous event that Trump’s critics have emphasized in the run-up to Sunday. The German American Bund, a pro-Nazi group, held a rally at the Garden in 1939, two years before the United States entered World War II. That moment emerged in recent days after Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, said in a New York Times interview that the former president said “more than once that ‘You know, Hitler did some good things too,'” accusations the former president immediately rejected.

Before the rally at Madison Square Garden, Trump insists that he is making a serious bet on the state of New York, which with its 28 Electoral College votes makes it the fourth largest prize of 2024 after California (54), Texas (40) and Florida (30). ).

Harris is hosting her own big media events, including Friday demonstration in houston with cultural icons Beyoncé and Willie Nelson who Democrats hope can help boost their Senate candidate Collin Allred towards a defeat of Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who served two terms. The Democratic presidential candidate is also planning an event on Tuesday at The Ellipse near the White House in Washington DC, site of the Trump rally that preceded the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

But Trump’s advisers also acknowledge that a loss in the Empire State is a long shot, just as California is Harris’ country and Texas and Florida are in the Republican camp. Instead, they describe Sunday’s event as part of Trump’s ongoing effort to organize media events that will attract national attention as it makes its way to the battleground states.

Trump has always sought creative ways to attract attention, from his descent down an escalator in the lobby of Trump Tower of the same name before his presidential campaign announcement in 2015 to last Sunday’s photo op at McDonald’s. In this cycle, it has also generated expectation with a triumphant return to the siege of Pennsylvania where two months earlier an assassination attempt shot him in the ear.

“It’s all about the media,” said one attendee, and, in this case, “New York is the media capital of the world.”

Plus, aides said, Trump is a New York native and has always wanted to be the headline act at the Garden. He has been a regular presence at the 19,500-seat arena over the years and said in a recent interview that he saw Ali and Frazier fight there more than half a century ago, calling it “perhaps the biggest event.”

Not that all Trump memories are pleasant. In 2019, then-President Trump I heard boos when he entered the Garden for a UFC fight. Gwenda Blair, a longtime Trump biographer, noted that the Garden is associated with rock stars, celebrities and wrestlers, which plays into the larger-than-life image Trump cultivates.

“That image surrounds him: the whole kind of combination of rock star and heavyweight champion,” said Blair, author of ‘The Trumps: three generations that built an empire.’ She added: “Those things are so palpable in that, already so many references when you say Madison Square Garden. “That will be, in itself, an apparent coronation for him as a champion.”

A Republican candidate in New York, California

Trump’s allies reject the idea that his rally in New York has little or no strategic benefit.

In addition to attracting national media attention, they say it could help increase voter turnout for Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. Trump will do it Needs majorities in Congress to help him implement the second-term agenda he has been promising during his campaign, and there are three House races in New York that are considered blowouts, according to nonpartisan handicapper The Cook Political Report, two with Republican incumbents and one with a Democrat.

The Republican presidential candidate will also hold a fundraiser around the New York event to raise much-needed money for his campaign. Harris raised $222 million in September through her main campaign account, compared to Trump’s $63 million. Those figures do not include other political committees that are raising large sums to support each candidate.

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Madison Square Garden will be “the highlight” for Trump “because he really is a New Yorker, he’s very excited.”

“People keep saying, ‘Well, shouldn’t I be in Wisconsin?’ Shouldn’t it be… right? Every day it is everywhere because television covers it,” Gingrich added. “You’re going to get huge coverage at Madison Square Garden and you’re going to be happy and excited and the crowd is going to go crazy.”

Trump held a rally earlier this month at Coachella in California, another blue state, he has little chance of winning.

“This tactic of entering a non-competitive media market or state in the last week of the election is not a typical strategy, but he is not a typical candidate,” said Steve Caplan, a professor of advertising and political messaging at the University of the Southern California and Has worked for decades in Democratic politics doing media.

Caplan added that a rally at Madison Square Garden is “a great opportunity to get attention,” but could also discourage undecided voters if it “goes off the rails.”

Harris’ campaign has also scheduled events outside swing states. His event in Texas on Friday with pop superstar Beyoncé highlighted the state’s restrictive abortion law as she makes abortion rights a centerpiece of her campaign. Trump hosted a counterprogramming event in Texas the same day focused on immigration.

Demonstrating in New York and California in the final month of the election is not the only unorthodox part of Trump’s campaign strategy in the final stretch. He has also avoided traditional events, such as additional debates after facing Harris. in Philadelphia on September 10, and interviews in the main media that would probably be more conflictive, especially with the CBS program “60 Minutes.”

Trump has complained about the treatment he receives from major television networks and threatened to revoke their broadcast licenses. He has devoted more time to conservative and alternative media to try to energize his base and reach casual voters.

While Trump has put himself more in the spotlight in recent weeks with inflammatory comments, Caplan said he wonders if that’s why the polls have tightened.

“In his opinion, it’s a good place for him to be the center of attention in the last two weeks, and he’s very good at it. But is that what specifically affected the race? Caplan said, pointing instead to a shift in the paid media strategy being deployed by the Trump campaign.

Trump’s campaign has pivoted toward ads focused largely on attacking transgender people and gender-affirming healthcare. That may have helped increase negative views of Harris after a period this summer in which her approval rating soared, Caplan said.

At the same time, the campaign is trying to boost voter turnout among Trump supporters, and the rally at Madison Square Garden could help achieve that.

“That’s the game,” Caplan said. “It’s about mobilizing and motivating voters.”

While New York may provide Trump with the biggest stage in the country, it is also another stop on the final path toward the Nov. 5 goal. The Republican, who hopes to join Grover Cleveland as the second president to win non-consecutive terms in the White House, returns to the swing states with rallies scheduled for Tuesday night in Allentown, Pa., and Wednesday night in Green Bay, Wisconsin. .