Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump held dueling rallies in Wisconsin as polls show the candidates in the heat as they push to win the key battleground state next week.
Harris spoke to supporters in Madison Wednesday night after performances by Gracie Abrams, Mumford & Sons and Remy Wolff to warm up the “Vote Out” event. Former Green Bay Packers superstar quarterback Brett Favre attended Trump’s rally in Ashwauben, just outside Green Bay.
Harris and Trump are in a near tie in the Badger state, with the vice president leading 50 percent to 49 percent of 834 registered voters, according to the latest Marquette University Law School poll. An Atlas Intel poll released Tuesday showed Trump leading Harris 48.7 percent to 48.1 percent among 1,470 likely voters. Both differences fall within the polls’ margin of error, meaning the race is essentially tied.
President Joe Biden flipped Wisconsin in 2020 but won by about 20,600 votes, or about 0.7 percent of the total votes cast. According to tracking by 538, Harris leads his Republican opponent in state polls by an average of 0.8 points.
Wednesday’s rallies showed the state of the race. Harris’ event in Madison was held at the Alliant Energy Center, which has a maximum capacity of 10,231, according to its website. Photos of the event show the venue close-up as the vice president spoke.
The Wall Street Journal Reporter Annie Lynskey also shared a video on her account on X, formerly Twitter, before Harris arrived from a campaign stop in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The clip shows most of the seats filled as fans dance to Chapel Rowan’s hit song, “Hot To Go.”
Trump’s event took place at the Research Center, which has a maximum capacity of 10,200 people, according to its website. Photos from the event also showed most of the seats appeared to be full when Trump took the stage wearing a trash can on Wednesday, a reference to Biden’s controversial statement a day earlier in which he ex- The president’s supporters were called “garbage.”
NBC News reporter Matt Dixon posted videos of Trump’s location on his X account before the former president took the stage, at one point showing the center at about 60 percent capacity around 6:20 p.m. In a following report, Dixon said that Trump’s rally was not a “sellout” but that more spectators gathered after the event began.
About half an hour later, Dixon posted a video and said the Resch Center looked “very full.” The video, posted around 6:52 pm ET, showed some empty chairs in the back of the seating area. Trump took the stage just after 7:15 p.m.
James Singer, the Harris campaign’s rapid-response adviser, posted a video of Dixon on his X account, writing, “Trump stole empty seats in Wisconsin.” The video in question was taken about an hour before the former president spoke.
The presidential campaigns have exchanged barbs about the size of each other’s rallies. Trump has repeatedly increased the size of his events, and 28 rallies from July to mid-August drew an average of 5,600 guests, according to an analysis by the Crowd Counting Consortium, a joint venture between Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut.
During the same period, Harris appeared in six rallies, averaging 13,400 spectators per event. The vice president delivered his closing arguments at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, setting a record crowd for his campaign, with 75,000 people in attendance, according to his team.
Newsweek The Trump and Harris campaigns were reached by email Wednesday for comment.