The establishment media estimated 10,000-12,000 people attended former President Donald Trump’s Monday evening Pittsburgh, PA, rally, a huge number on the eve of Election Day.
The Harris campaign in the final weeks has tried to attack Trump’s enthusiasm in the Keystone State, but with large crowds showing up on Monday night for a political rally, the attacks appear unfounded and politically motivated.
The members of the United Steelworkers union attended the rally, defying the union that endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Their appearance underscores the ongoing political realignment since Trump joined politics and his appeal to blue-collar workers.
“With the upper deck of this 19,000 capacity venue in Pittsburgh closed off, I’d estimate Trump will speak to 10-12k supporters at this final rally of his Pennsylvania campaign,” NBC News’s Senior Capitol Hill Correspondent Garrett Haake posted a photo on X:
“This is fantastic,” Trump said upon entering the arena. “A very, very special hello to Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania.”
“I’d like to begin by asking a very, very simple and easy to understand question, are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Trump asked.
“No,” the crowd shot back.
“We do not have to settle for weakness, incompetence, decline, and decay. With your vote tomorrow, we can fix every single problem our country faces, and lead America and indeed, the whole world to new heights,” Trump said.
Trump lost the Keystone State in 2020 by 1.2 percentage points. Since then, Republican groups have focused on grassroots initiatives, such as registering voters and encouraging them to vote early.
Cliff Maloney, who launched the “Pennsylvania Chase” initiative in the state, explained the grassroots’ success in a Breitbart News oped published Monday:
We deployed 120 full time ballot chasers on-the-ground in Pennsylvania to knock on 500,000 doors and solve one problem: in 2020, Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes, but 141,000 Republicans requested a mail-in ballot and left it sitting on their kitchen table.
Now, within the final hours of this wild election year, Democrats are down 403,000 mail-in returns compared to four years ago, while Republicans are up by 114,000 returns. This isn’t just a small shift; it’s an historic swing in the Keystone State.
For the first time in years, early voting and mail-in ballot numbers are seeing a real competition between Republicans and Democrats, signaling an opportunity for a strong Trump showing in Pennsylvania. But here’s the critical point: we can’t let these numbers lull us into a false sense of security. To secure victory, we need every last Republican voter to show up on Election Day.
The Harris campaign believes the Keystone State’s election results will not be determined until Wednesday or beyond.
The forecast suggests the Harris campaign believes she will not win the election in a landslide, a prediction that some Republicans believe is mostly correct, with the caveat that Trump could win in a landslide. Trump, some argue, has more paths to victory than Harris.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.