Donald Trump is coming to Raleigh tomorrow night, where he’ll hold a rally at Dorton Arena. Folks familiar with Raleigh know Dorton Arena as the unusually shaped structure on the State Fairgrounds. And it’s also yuuge, with a seating capacity of over 7,500.
Republican political consultant Carter Wrenn is interested to see if Trump can actually fill the arena. It’s something no other political figure has even tried to do, but Trump is not a typical political figure. Regardless of his ultimate success in the primary, one cannot deny that his candidacy is a genuine phenomenon. And he’ll doubtless attract throngs of people who would never consider voting for him but will attend for the curiosity factor.
Trump’s venture into the state is a preview of what we can look forward to in the near future. We hold our primary on March 15th, but our state’s significance in the GOP primary is more a function of the sheer number of delegates at stake rather than the timing. Come February and March, we’ll start seeing a lot more of the candidates, in person and on television – and not just because of spillover from South Carolina into the Charlotte media market.
It’s also Trump’s first visit to the state since June, when he appeared at the NC GOP convention and gave an unusually subdued interview to the News & Observer (the favorite newspaper of the McCrory campaign). Those were innocent times, when Jeb Bush topped the polls, with a guy named Scott Walker in close second, and with Trump attracting a mere 4% of the vote from people likely to be disappointed when the billionaire businessman would reveal, to no one’s surprise, that he was not going to take the plunge into presidential waters and that his flirtation with running was nothing more than a bid for ratings.
How times have changed. Six months later, we’re in a situation no one then would have thought possible: Trump leads all the national and early state polls and by considerable margins. Scott Walker has returned to Wisconsin. Jeb Bush, while not a mere asterisk in the polls, seems to be getting closer to that point with each passing day.
And most importantly, nothing thrown at Donald Trump seems to stick. It seems only to make him stronger. The GOP establishment knows what they must do; they must take down Trump and make sure a credible candidate emerges on top – just about anyone not named Ted Cruz will do. How they’re going to do so is still up in the air, but what’s certain is that a battle is brewing for the heart and soul of the Republican Party – and because of its March primary date and vast delegate count, North Carolina will play a part.
John Wynne is the “conservative voice” at PoliticsNC, where he also provides polling analysis and commentary on legislative campaigns. When not writing about politics, he enjoys gardening and listening to opera. Contact: johncwynne@gmail.com.
For some reason Donald does not want to talk about the fact that his family name is Drumpf, a German name, and he has not been able to find a valid birth certificate showing that he (Donald) is an American citizen.
I believe that Bernie Sanders drew 9,000 people to Greensboro in September.
I don’t remember hearing about empty seats when the state Democrats moved Jefferson-Jackson there in ’08, the keynote speaker being candidate Barak Obama.
Dukakis filled it in ’88. I was there.
I think the sign front and center in the photo says it all. (And makes me wonder again at the sanity of a portion of the electorate.) Adoration of those running for office is never justified. Period. They are prone to human error like the rest of us.
The return of Hope and Change under new management. 🙂
Bill Clinton came close to packing Reynolds Coliseum on the State campus in October 1992, and that place held 12,000.