End of an era: Will Trump’s 50th campaign rally in NC be his last?
Thirty-nine minutes into former President Donald Trump’s 90-minute speech in North Carolina on Wednesday afternoon, he peered down and pointed at a single man in a crowd of more than 5,000 people.
“There’s Mr. Wall,” Trump said. “See that jacket?”
Blake Marnell, a San Diego resident, was sitting in the front row of the Rocky Mount Event Center wearing a suit patterned after a brick wall, and Trump had now focused in on him.
“So they’re out of production now,” Marnell told McClatchy before Trump’s speech Wednesday, “but these are costume suits out of England, that I repurposed for American political purposes.”
Marnell is passionate about stopping illegal immigration in the United States and his suit is a nod to Trump’s campaign promise to build a wall on the country’s southern border.
Showing up to Trump rallies dressed like a wall again and again has made Marnell an “accidental political pundit” and led to many nicknames, like the one Trump had just called him.
He likens himself to a living meme.
Marnell said when scheduling his vacation at work this year, he ensured he could be on the East Coast for the last of Trump’s rallies before the Nov. 5 election.
After all, he’s been to more than 250.
And he knows it won’t be the same after Tuesday.
“There is just six days left,” Marnell said Wednesday, “and that’s going to be it for President Trump reelection rallies. I believe there will be more rallies after that, but something about them will not be the same, because it is not going to be about electing President Trump.”
Trump has held about 50 rallies in North Carolina, culminating Monday in Raleigh — unless, of course, he loses and runs again.
North Carolina is among the swing states that have been at the center of the Trump-rally phenomenon. And these are no ordinary political events, but are marked by followers attending their 10th or 100th rally, by tables of Trump-related merchandise for sale, by Trump’s rants and digressions, by crowd chants of “Lock her up” as Trump accused his opponent of crimes or “Send her back” as he detailed his feud with a congresswoman who is a Somali refugee.
Almost since he began campaigning for president, Trump started holding rallies at airports and other venues around the state.
In December 2015, just six months after Trump announced his candidacy, protesters repeatedly disrupted a rally he held in Raleigh angered by statements he made about people of varying races and religions. That made national news; so did an assault charge against a man who punched a protester at a rally in Fayetteville a few months later.
And the day before the 2016 election, he stood in the same place he will on the day before the 2024 election: Dorton Arena on the North Carolina state fairgrounds in Raleigh. There, The News & Observer reported, he told a crowd chanting “Lock her up,” that ”a totally rigged system” was protecting the “corrupt” Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s supporters
Frequent guests draw Trump’s attention, like Marnell did in Rocky Mount.
“You know he’s a genius,” Trump said from the stage, still talking about Marnell. “He’s one of the smart people. He makes a lot of money as a professional but he still likes these rallies. I think it’s like 279, isn’t it? He likes Trump.”
And Trump said he feels comfortable having “a wall” with him.
It’s hard to miss Marnell.
As people poured into the Rocky Mount Event Center to claim their seats Wednesday, Marnell stood in the back of the room, posing for photos with friends and fans he’s accumulated from his time at Trump rallies and taking videos for himself.
Marnell can point out frequent guests at Trump rallies, like the “Front Row Joes.” Or some of the most frequent guests at Trump’s rallies, a group of women who are members of a controversial church in Western North Carolina’s Rutherford County. Many former members of Word of Faith Fellowship have described being physically assaulted during prayers, which the church has disputed.
The North Carolina women declined to comment on Wednesday about attending Trump rallies.
Excitement to see Trump
Trump had not yet visited Rocky Mount during the 2024 cycle, and Dorothea Ohlandt made sure she wasn’t going to miss it when he did.
She lives around an hour away in Franklinton and traveled Tuesday night with the intention of being the first in line for Wednesday’s 1 p.m. rally.
She succeeded by lining up first at 10 p.m. Tuesday.
“I love the fact that he is putting God first again,” she said. “And that’s my biggest thing: if we put God first, America will be great again.”
It was six rallies ago, Ohlandt said, that she learned she could attend, and since then she’s traveled to Wilmington, Asheboro, Charlotte, Pennsylvania and New York.
“We just loved it,” she said.
As she smiled, a sticker on her cheek rose upward showing Trump asking, “Miss me?” and promising, “I’ll be back.”
She had that same enthusiasm when she attended Trump’s rally Sunday night at Madison Square Garden in New York. She was first in line for that as well.
It was suppose to be Trump’s closing arguments to the nation on why he should be president, but racist and crude comments made by several speakers and a comedian overshadowed his campaign message.
Marnell, who also attended the event, called it “electric” and likened it to a one-day convention. He called the speakers “amazing.”
Trump’s rallies have often given fodder to his opponents for controversial statements and gaffes he’s made through the years, and Sunday night was no exception. As Harris boarded Air Force Two on Monday, she called out Trump’s New York appearance, saying he’s “focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself and on dividing our country.”
Harris held a rally in Raleigh Wednesday while Trump was in Rocky Mount. So far, she’s appeared in the state seven more times than Trump this election cycle.
But Trump’s supporters weren’t paying Harris or her comments any attention in Rocky Mount.
At 11:11 p.m. Tuesday, Karen Little walked up behind Ohlandt, becoming the second in line for her first rally.
“They call me the virgin,” Little said the next morning. “I’m the virgin rallier. They showed me the ropes.”
She was pointing to Ohlandt and Donald Duke, of Henderson, who became the third in line at 12:30 a.m.
Ohlandt and Duke have been to six rallies each.
District divided
Little’s community of Rocky Mount is part of North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, the state’s only true swing district where voters have historically cast ballots for both political parties, making it unclear whether Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat, or his opponent, retired Army Colonel Laurie Buckhout, will win the seat.
So it would seem strategic that Trump visited the area as one of his last in-person attempts to sway voters to the Republican Party.
“I think it will” work, Little said, “because I’m looking around and I’m seeing people that I know that are Democrats here and they’re wearing Trump hats. I’ve even changed a Democrat to vote for Trump. It took me three years, but I got her.”
Even Little wasn’t always convinced to vote for Trump. In 2016, she thought she would vote for former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson who ran against Trump, before being given his cabinet position.
Trump was too cocky for her, she said.
But Trump changed her mind after she listened to his policies on immigration and the economy and what his plans were for the country.
“Ben Carson is a good man, but very soft-spoken; not tough,” she said. “Trump is tough. He’s a gangster. So I thought, that’s it. I gotta have it.”
She cast her ballot in 2016 for Trump. And did it again in 2020. And will do it again in 2024.
As for Duke, a lifelong Republican, “I’m a police officer,” Duke said. “Illegal immigration is a thing, I don’t care what nobody says. I stop cars every day. People come up, ‘no papers, no papers.’ I believe in immigration, but do it the right way.”
Duke is also bothered that he’s working two jobs, owns his own small business, makes more money than he ever has, but can’t afford anything, he said.
“I’m living paycheck-to-paycheck,” Duke said.
Before Duke even got in line, Democrats argued why Trump wasn’t right for Eastern North Carolina.
“Donald Trump has no plans to help the people of North Carolina, and when he comes to Rocky Mount, he’ll only remind voters of his extreme Project 2025 agenda to give him unchecked power, raise costs on families by almost $4,000 a year and drop an inflation bomb on our economy,” said Michael Zhadanovsky, director of rapid response for the 2024 North Carolina Coordinated Campaign.
As the sun rose over Rocky Mount, and the chill of the overnight’s crisp autumn air fell away, the scene around Ohlandt, Little and Duke began to transform from that of a small town to a full-scale Trump event.
Vendors set up their tables to sell Trump merchandise. Roads closed down to make way for both crowds of people and lines of cars trying to get to the Rocky Mount Event Center. School buses had to dodge and weave through the chaos early that morning.
People wearing Trump swag marched down the road with flags that included his face, his campaign signs and the American flag.
And suddenly, Ohlandt, Little and Duke were joined by thousands of people also trying to get inside to see Trump.
Making friends
And this is one of Marnell’s favorite parts of the experience.
“It’s not just the rally that I like,” Marnell said. ”I started going early, and then I discovered that you meet people, and that’s fun too.”
But then he changed his mind again: “Sometimes the rally is better.”
He couldn’t choose.
As Marnell sat in the front row of the event center he explained that he doesn’t have official VIP status at Trump’s events, but he often gets treated like he does. Today he was offered good seating.
Around him people wore T-shirts that read things like, “Raised by Reagan,” “USA” and “I’m voting for the felon.” A dizzying number of red “Make America Great Again” hats lined the stadium seats now occupied by guests, excited to see Trump.
One woman had her hands raised to the sky and swayed back and forth like she was in church.
But maybe no one was more excited than 24-year-old Damien Cadena. He sat in the first row of the seats that ran parallel to the VIP section with a clear vantage point of the stage. His grin was infectious and he bounced a little when he talked.
He and his grandmother, Donna Bragg, couldn’t believe Trump was in their town.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “This is my first time seeing somebody that big and famous. I’m so excited.”
Cadena said he wants the country to go back to the way it was under Trump.
But more than that, on this particular Wednesday, he wanted to meet Trump. And Bragg said she wanted to shake his hand and hear him say her name.
Marnell remembers well the first time that happened to him: it was in 2019, in Mountoursville, Pennsylvania.
“That was the first rally I went to where I wore this suit and the president called me on stage,” Marnell said. “And it’s just a beautiful little airport in a river valley in Pennsylvania. And on the backdrop, there’s all these wooded hills, and it’s really nice, so that’s my favorite.”
So are rallies at airports, he said.
Attempted assassination
And then there was the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The one where Trump was shot in the ear by Thomas Crooks, 20, who instead killed 50-year-old Corey Comperatore. Two others were struck by gunfire but survived.
Marnell said he was close by to the president when it happened.
“There was 15 seconds of confusion and 20 seconds of realization of what was happening,” Marnell said. “And then the president was down below that barrier, so I couldn’t see him. I could just see the Secret Service on top, so I didn’t know what condition he was in because I wasn’t looking at him when he was shot.”
And, Marnell adds, there was nothing like the second rally Trump held in Butler.
“It was a good balance of honoring the people that were killed and hurt there and moving the campaign forward,” Marnell said.
Following Trump
Marnell said each rally is slightly different based on the location, size and the audience.
Soon Trump would move on to rallies in Gastonia and Greensboro later in the week, returning to Eastern North Carolina on Sunday for a Kinston rally.
As for the rally in Rocky Mount, Marnell said it was a very small space, creating the type of atmosphere Trump prefers: intimate.
Marnell said Trump would enjoy the space because “he has a connection with voters that not all politicians do.”
“I think that a small venue like this really brings that out,” Marnell said.
This story was originally published November 4, 2024 at 5:00 AM with the headline "End of an era: Will Trump’s 50th campaign rally in NC be his last?."