For years, Donald Trump’s rallies were events that people planned their weekends around, camping outside venues overnight and lining up hours before doors opened.
On Friday in Phoenix, a retired dental hygienist named Diane Niemann said she only showed up because she saw there was barely a line to get in. That detail tells the story more efficiently than any attendance figure.
Trump spoke at the Build the Red Wall rally at Dream City Church in Phoenix, organized by Turning Point USA ahead of the 2026 midterms. He had posted on Truth Social earlier in the day about the “BIG CROWD” he expected.
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Roughly 3,000 people attended a venue that seats 4,500, leaving the megachurch about a third empty.
Some protesters had lined up outside Dream City Church for hours before Trump arrived, and his motorcade was greeted by a chorus of profanity from demonstrators outside. “He’s a criminal and what bothers me most is that he’s a constitutional criminal. He sent us to war, not Congress,” one protester told reporters.
Inside, the mood was considerably more subdued than Trump’s previous Arizona appearances, with the crowd skewing older rather than the young voters the event was specifically designed to attract.
Niemann, the retired dental hygienist who only attended because the line was short, told the Washington Post she was worried about the midterms, and that her daughter in Las Vegas had been complaining about gas prices at nearly $5 a gallon. “I’m totally shocked,” she said of the sparse crowd. A loyal Trump voter, standing in a half-empty church, shocked by what she saw. That is not a sentence that would have been written about a Trump rally eighteen months ago.
The event was also notable for what it represented organizationally. Trump’s previous visit to Phoenix was 6 months ago for the memorial of Charlie Kirk, who was killed during an on-campus event at Utah Valley University in September. TPUSA, once one of the most effective youth mobilization machines in conservative politics, is now being led by Kirk’s widow Erika and is still finding its footing.
During the speech, Trump announced that the Strait of Hormuz was “fully open and ready for business,” a line that drew applause but also landed in a broader context of war, inflation pressure, and slipping approval numbers that have been building since early in the year.
The backdrop matters here more than the applause.
In 2024, Trump won Arizona by more than five points. Historically, Republicans have performed weaker when he is not on the ballot. The “red wall” this rally was meant to reinforce already shows gaps, and the midterms are still months away.
Featured image via YouTube screengrab
