Is there any value to political rallies?

Politics & Elections
1

With the election moving into its final days I have seen some videos of the candidates at political rallies and it made me wonder…why?

It seems like the epitome of preaching to the choir. They pack a stadium or whatever with their own people who hoot and holler at every sentence the candidate says (or VP too in this case).

Why spend the money and time to harangue people who are already totally on your side? Often with a stump speech that has been repeated 100 times? This goes for any party. Is all that effort just for a five-second clip on the news?

Maybe a whistlestop tour made sense in the days before radio and TV but now, with the internet and YouTube/TikTok does a candidate really need such rallies?

2

Probably not. At this point, and as you say, the candidate is preaching to the choir.

Or is the candidate? How many rally attendees are filming the candidate, planning to put who they’re filming on social media? How many media companies are covering the rally? How many times will the candidate’s remarks, as replayed briefly by all media, be reported on, analyzed, and discussed?

I’m not a fan of political rallies, and if all they were for, was for attendees; then you have a point. But I think that candidates know that when the rally is over, the remarks they made there will be reported on later, and the next day, and possibly the day after that; allowing them to reach a far wider audience than occupied the stadium, arena, or theatre.

3

Part of their role is not necessarily just for the people who attend. Coverage of an rally (hopefully) demonstrates that the candidate has enthusiastic supporters – particularly in the city/state where the rally is being held – and might have a psychological “bandwagon effect.”

I was up in Green Bay, WI last week, visiting my parents, on a day that Kamala Harris had a rally in the city. It was all over the news that day (just as Trump’s rallies there likely got similar, extensive coverage).

It also has the effect of showing voters that the candidate cares enough about them, and their issues, to make a stop in their state, and in their city – which is why so many of the rallies are in swing states.

4

Exactly. It’s not about the attendees at the rally. It’s about the media coverage of the rally.

Going into the actual vote, a candidate wants to project enthusiasm and momentum. Most voters are not very smart or sophisticated. Many, many people function at an intellectual level barely above dumb herd animals. They want to join a winner. They want to be included in the flock. They don’t root for the Chiefs because of team dynamics or Reid’s coaching philosophy or whatever, they root for the Chiefs because the Chiefs are winners (and previously the Patriots, and before them the Cowboys, and before them the Packers, etc etc).

So the candidate needs to maintain a constant output of large, happy, cheering crowds. If that flags to any perceptible degree, it gives the perception of failing momentum. It projects an impending loss. And the voting herd will get skittish and run away.

This is why Trump doesn’t really give a shit that he’s bloviating to the same mob of traveling Deadheads. It’s not about them. It’s about having pictures and video where he holds forth and masses of people celebrate him. And it’s why he and his handlers are so obsessed with crowd size and making sure the camera angles obscure any gaps and maximize the impression of attendance. I mean, yes, for him, the higher priority is his own ego gratification, but he also knows this is a key aspect of his image management.

Harris has to respond in kind, but she understands the strategic campaign message is the primary driver.

And, ultimately, the rally is a campaign expense and it does occupy a block of the candidate’s schedule, but it’s not really that time-consuming, in the wider context. Harris gets up and gives her standard stump speech for, what, 30 or 45 minutes, depending on the local details (deadline for travel getaway, who else is on the stage, etc). The actual on-stage time is conducted largely on autopilot, with a handful of local customizations tossed in here and there (in this city we mention corn, in that city we mention steel). There’s no new memorization or rehearsal. At this point, it’s almost entirely pat.

And further consider that backstage, Harris is occupied glad-handing the big-money donors before she steps out for her speech. As she travels from town to town, the hour or maybe two where she has to be on camera will be outbalanced by the many additional hours where she’s making a private appearance at yet another wealthy person’s private house, soliciting donations and support.

So — rallies are just the public-facing justification for the travel, but they’re not necessarily the primary purpose.

5

Reading this again, I realize I left out a key thought I had in mind when I started this section: not only are the rallies not necessarily the primary justification for all the travel, in some ways they could be seen as camouflage for the more important purpose of meeting locally with all these big-money boosters. In short, if there weren’t any rallies, the candidate would be transparently going from city to city to see the Buffets and Gateses and Cubans behind closed doors, and that secrecy becomes the story. But with the rally, you can wave video footage in front of the media bull, and they have something cheap and easy to put on screen, so the other stuff gets ignored.

6

I think it’s a little bit about the attendees at the rally. That is to say, The intent is to show people who are not at the rally that the candidate’s supporters are just like them, encouraging those people to vote in a similar fashion.

7

Rallies are also to motivate those on your side to actually go and vote.

8

That aligns with and just repeats what I said. The rally-goers are already convinced. The targets for the optics and messaging are outside the rally.

9

Without giving the impression that your campaign has so much support and momentum that they’ll win without you.

10

The Harris campaign has to spend down that massive war chest somehow, and holding a lot of rallies forces the Trump camp to do the same, and spend money they otherwise might use elsewhere. The more Trump is forced to tour like this, the more exhausted he becomes, and the more likely he’ll say stupid shit. And as stated, it also highlights a more positive and energetic Harris to tired ol’ pappy in the media.

11

In Trump’s case, at least, I suspect it may be the part of the job that he genuinely most enjoys.

12

My own belief is that he enjoys his personal petty vengeances more than the adulation of people he considers beneath him. Every time he was able to torpedo an Obama initiative, I suspect, he was as happy as it’s possible for him to be.

But this is departing from the core of the thread, drifting into general psychoanalysis, so I’ll leave it there.

13

Trump will not gain any. But the clips from ralies will affect people in those areas, just to confim they are Trumpers and need to vote. It will also help Kamala for the “I just don’t know kamala…” crowd. They do not need to be at the rally, but the interest in their state or county is noted.

14

If focus groups are complaining that a candidate ignores our state or area, a highly publicized rally makes sense. In absence of that, the answer to the thread title question is — no one knows.

People who run for office are optimists. They think effort is rewarded. I’m skeptical.

Campaigning unavoidably reminds both sides to vote. That’s the problem with it.

15

Yeah, I think there is. People like to belong and feel like they’re part of a movement, and rallies do that. (IMO, this is one of the reasons that Trump has consistently done much better in elections than he “ought” to do on paper; he is very, very good at making people feel that way, especially people who are otherwise kind of disaffected and don’t have that sense of belonging in their everyday lives, and thus don’t always turn out for elections.)

They’re also a good way to motivate people who already support you to take that next step of volunteering, donating money, and / or talking to their neighbors about you, as well helping your campaign figure out who your most committed supporters are in the first place. Grass-roots politics still matters, even at the presidential level!

16

Yeah, it’s only one silly data point, but Beto came through the DFW area back in the summer of 2022 and held a “rally” outside in 100 degree heat when he was trying to replace Abbott as governor.

There were maybe 2,000 - 3,000 of us in attendance, and afterwards it wouldn’t have taken much for me to run through a wall for the guy. I remember telling a few like-minded friends and family that I couldn’t wait to vote for him.

17

Responding to Cervaise’s comment, “Many, many people function at an intellectual level barely above dumb herd animals.” Even if they meant only “when it comes to politics and elections,” I think it is a mistaken point. Electoral politics in nation-states has never been about democratic discussion, reasoned debate, informed choices, and representative governments. They are always about elites pursuing their own agendas and roping the rest of us in via manipulation, patronage, and appeals to the gut rather than the head. That is to say, politics is something done to us rather than something we engage in as equals. Thus the base nature of politics tells us nothing about the intellectual level of people. It does tell us something about the ways we are vulnerable to manipulation and propaganda, both of which start at a very early age. Particularly as our society becomes atomized and we have little real connection to meaningful politics, rallies are more like attending a pro wrestling match for fun and giggles and raw emotion. Hey, they re worse ways to kill a couple of hours. Assessing people’s intelligence, real interests, ideas, and politics from such events is not very useful.

18

I’ve often had the experience of going to a concert to see a band I wasn’t that enthused about, but after the concert, I’d like them a lot more, at least for a while.

19

You made my point much more succinctly!

20

Well, I always have been vulnerable to manipulation and propaganda. :blush: