Will Trump rallies make a difference in the Midterms?

Adele Malpass:

One of the new dynamics in this midterm election is President Trump reprising the rallies that helped fuel his victory in 2016. While it’s common for presidents to campaign during midterms, arena-size crowds at rallies all over the country is a new phenomenon, and these events have proven to be a powerful way to communicate with, and excite, base voters.

The big question, however, is whether Trump’s supporters will turn out on Nov. 6, because it’s one thing to go to an energy-filled rally, another to find time on Election Day to go a polling place and put an X beside a candidate that isn’t nearly as motivational as the president.

In 2016, Trump had the ability to fill arenas in multiple states on the same day, but some in the media played down the importance of rallies even after he won the election. In response, White House aide Kellyanne Conway said in a post-election analysis: “The size of rallies matters.” Recently, the president echoed that point in a tweet....

Trump isn’t alone in this assessment. “If people stand out in the rain and sun for hours, camp out overnight and take off work to attend a rally, then they’ll certainly show up to vote,” said Trish Hope, publisher of “Just the Tweets,” a compilation of the president’s first-year tweets. Hope’s sold more than 4,000 books at rallies, nine of which she has attended in the last month. “What the media misses is that people just want to be part of the Trump movement. And they are in denial that something big is going on here.” She added, “The media is going to be more shocked this year on election night than in 2016.”

A quick comparison reveals Trump’s appearances have generated much larger crowds than those of prominent Democrats. In Nevada last weekend, the president hit the campaign trail with a rally in Elko County, which drew 8,500. Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden campaigned for Democratic Senate candidate Jackie Rosen in Las Vegas -- before an audience of about 500. Former President Obama was also recently in the state, but only 2,000 people attended his event in the University of Nevada-Las Vegas’s 18,000-seat arena. On Monday, Trump held a rally in Houston where 100,000 people requested tickets even though the Toyota Center there can accommodate just 18,000.
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I think it takes much more commitment to attend one of these giant rallies than it does to go vote.  I think the rallies also energize others to go vote too.  I have never seen crowds at early voting like I did in Washington, County Texas a strongly Republican area.  Harris County where the rally was held in Houston set a record for first day early voting.  I think the Kavanaugh effect in response to the abuse of a good man and all the physical assaults on Republicans by Democrats gave GOP voters an incentive to make the effort.