Hundreds of President Trump’s supporters began lining up early Sunday morning for his Monday evening “Make America Great Again” rally in Houston.
The joint rally with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) doesn’t begin until 6 p.m., but by midnight the line stretched several city blocks, with the number of diehard fans then topping a thousand.
So many people lined up that organizers dropped off some portable toilets.
When the rally was first announced, tickets went within minutes and the demand grew so fast that the rally had to be moved to a much larger venue. At first, the rally was planned for the 8,000-seat NRG Arena, but Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, said Thursday that the rally was moved to the Toyota Center, home of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, which holds at least 18,000.
“Response for tickets to #MAGA rally #Houston Mon 10/22 has been HUGE and unprecedented! This will be an epic rally, so we’re moving to @ToyotaCenter. Want to make sure everyone coming knows the venue changed!” Parscale wrote on Twitter.
And still the demand kept growing. By Saturday, some 77,000 tickets had been requested, but that number ballooned to more than 100,000 by Sunday evening.
But the arena holds only so many and a city police officer told the Houston Chronicle, “Keep in mind that once the capacity is met, you won’t get in whether you have a ticket or not.”
To handle the overflow crowd, organizers are setting up a “tailgate” party outside the Toyota Center to accommodate crowds of Trump and Cruz supporters. Parscale announced Sunday night that the tailgate party will start at 9 a.m. CDT: “Hey news media: the Trump Campaign tailgater starts tomorrow morning at 9:00 am – Food trucks, 10:00 am – Live music… and more! Please update your stories! #MAGARally #BigTexasTailgater,” he wrote on Twitter.
With 16 days to go before the midterm elections, it’s safe to say that enthusiasm is high among Republicans.