At Race’s End, Trump’s Rallies Recall Other Late Lunges In White House History

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In recent days, President Trump has held a flurry of rallies. Here he is speaking during one in Londonderry, N.H., on Sunday.

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

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So get ready for a full week of speeches that run 60 to 90 minutes with brash pronouncements about rigged elections, fake polls, corrupt opponents and news media prejudice. Much of the president’s time will be devoted to recalling the glories of 2016, when a flurry of such late rallies seemed to work wonders.

As the outsider challenging the establishment four years ago, Trump crisscrossed the country at a frantic pace, holding by one count 26 rallies across 11 states in the final six days of the campaign — including 10 in eight states in the final 48 hours.

While he did not carry every state he hit on that frantic tour, Trump came remarkably close even in places where he lost, such as Nevada, New Hampshire and Minnesota. All those states have been back on his itinerary this month, and he was in New Hampshire on Sunday.

Of course, the grand trophies were the states Trump did reap from his whirlwind tour, including the breathtakingly close ones: Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. The Florida margin was relatively fat at 1%. The other three prizes were taken by a combined total of about 77,000 votes. Given the winner-take-all rules of the Electoral College, those razor-thin wins were enough to make him president — even though he lost the national popular vote by 2.8 million votes.

There have been voices, even within the Trump campaign, cautioning that these events could be «superspreaders» for coronavirus infection. There have already been cases traced to Trump rallies. Moreover, some argue, the president should be seen at work in Washington, battling the pandemic, pushing a COVID-19-and-economy relief bill now hung up in Congress, or addressing other issues.

But those voices of dissent are being drowned out by the roar of the crowd.

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Even Vice President Pence, a less dynamic stage performer, is traveling extensively and pitching to crowds. Over the weekend, some Pence staffers, including his chief of staff, tested positive for the coronavirus and went into quarantine. But Pence is back out on the trail, providing his echo of the president and The Strategy.

Like other things in the Trump era that may seem unprecedented, these late forays into the country in search of votes actually have quite a history.

Before Twitter: torchlight and trains

Torchlight parades on the eve of Election Day caught on in the burgeoning cities of the 1850s and were first seen as affecting the outcome in the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln. For a time, they were a standard way of turning up the heat and generating voter turnout at the end of a long campaign year.

Perhaps the most famous late-inning rally on the road was Harry Truman’s legendary «whistle-stop tour» in 1948. Truman had become president when Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945 but utterly lacked the national stature of his predecessor. There were few polls in that era, but the incumbent was trailing badly and widely expected to lose.

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President Harry S. Truman speaks at a campaign stop in Waco, Texas, from his train platform on Sept. 27, 1948.

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Tens of thousands of people gather on 37th Street in New York City to see Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale and his running mate, Geraldine Ferraro, on Nov. 1, 1984.

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But a Trump campaign official told a reporter for Politico this month that a survey at one rally in Prescott, Ariz., (far from the metro areas of Phoenix and Tucson) found nearly one-fourth of the attendees did not consider themselves Republicans. Moreover, more than a third of them said they had not voted at all in 2016. If these individuals are as enthusiastic about Trump as most at the rally appeared to be, they are the new blood the president needs to win a second term.

Some Americans approach voting for president as a decision as momentous as choosing a college to attend or a place to live. For others, the commitment is more akin to a car purchase or a vacation package. Still others seem to make their choice much as they would settle on a movie or a restaurant, often at the last moment.

In any of these decision-making modes, there is both thought and emotion. But the emotional element may well prevail most often in the third group — those who, deciding later, may not weigh the permanence of the consequences.

For this group, at least, the energy or the media coverage generated by these 11th-hour events may well tip the balance. Or, at at minimum, it’s easy to see why candidates can come to think so.

• 2020 presidential election