GOP nominee Donald Trump held a last-minute rally in Asheville, North Carolina, on Wednesday this week, and it forced his campaign to pay an $82,000 advance to the city.
Blue Ridge Public Radio reported that the Trump campaign had to pay $82,247.60 in advance to the city as a payment for the “last-minute” rally, which was scheduled to be held at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville.
The campaign contacted city officials on August 8 about holding a rally there, in an effort to stamp out some of the momentum that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ campaign is building.
Kim Miller, a spokesperson for the city, said that $22,500 of that total amount goes toward the rental fee for the auditorium for two days. She added “the remainder of the funds go to cover additional costs such as house support, production staff, production equipment rental, and exterior items like queue stanchions and port-a-loos.”
Newsweek issued a report this week that despite the fact that Trump’s campaign paid this huge advance fee to Asheville, he has been known to stiff cities and not pay fees they required for him holding rallies.
The media outlet reported that, when Trump departed the White House in early 2021, he still had $850,000 in rally debt that was unpaid. Many of those bills still remain outstanding, Newsweek reported, including the more than $500,000 his campaign reportedly still owes El Paso, Texas.
The rally in Asheville this week was set to be held in the smaller of the two arenas that are in one complex in the downtown section of the city. The arena where the rally will be held has a seating capacity of 2,431 people, while the large venue can hold 7,200 people.
It seems to be a somewhat odd move for Trump, who often speaks about how large his crowds are, while downplaying that of his opponents.
He recently made a post to his Truth Social platform that backed a conspiracy theory that has claimed that the Harris campaign has used AI to make it seem like there have been large crowds at her rallies that “didn’t exist.”
One that was held in Michigan last week, for instance, reportedly had about 15,000 supporters attend.
North Carolina has long been a Republican hotbed, with the state siding with a conservative in just about every presidential election since back in the 1980s. The only exception in that timeframe was 2008, when President Barack Obama won North Carolina by only a very small margin.
But, last presidential election was a much closer vote than most people predicted. Trump defeated President Joe Biden by less than 100,000 votes in North Carolina in 2020, and a recent poll showed that Harris is neck-and-neck with Trump in the state.
That could be why the GOP nominee is working so hard to solidify North Carolina on his side.
