Donald Trump was an hour and a half late to his rally in Saginaw, Michigan, on Thursday, but even the extra time couldn’t muster more people to line the stadium.

“Who else fills big places like this at three in the afternoon?” Trump asked the roaring crowd.

But from another perspective, it was evident that the Republican presidential nominee had only filled a fraction of the event space.

A look at the crowd as Trump takes the stage here in Saginaw, Michigan.(For a campaign that often points out when opponents’ venues don’t look full, this visual is striking) pic.twitter.com/NjBVF4M1U1

— Taylor Popielarz (@TaylorPopielarz) October 3, 2024

Another clip of the space showed the empty, fluorescent backdrop to his speech.

The low turnout is significant for a candidate who has frequently attacked his political opponents for their inability to draw as many people as he’s historically attracted to his boisterous, sprawling campaign stops.

In 2016 and 2020, Trump relied on the visual logic of his loaded rallies—and, by extension, the lackluster crowds attending his opponents’—as evidence of his titanic popularity among everyday Americans. But Kamala Harris’s ability to meet and even exceed Trump’s numbers has really rattled him, along with the conservative establishment. Just weeks after the announcement of her campaign, news of Harris’s massive crowds reached the top of the Drudge Report, the most heavily trafficked conservative news aggregator, paired with the headline: “HARRIS CROWDS ROIL MAGA.”

A look at the crowd as Trump takes the stage here in Saginaw, Michigan.

(For a campaign that often points out when opponents’ venues don’t look full, this visual is striking) pic.twitter.com/NjBVF4M1U1

— Taylor Popielarz (@TaylorPopielarz) October 3, 2024

Trump’s lies vs. reality pic.twitter.com/chNcDdY9vH

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 3, 2024