President Donald Trump, pressing ahead in a pandemic even as campaign staff tested positive for the coronavirus, looked to reverse a decline in his political fortunes by returning Saturday to the format that so often has energized him and his loyal supporters: a raucous, no-holds-barred rally before tens of thousands of ardent fans, this time in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The rally was shaping up to be the largest indoor gathering in the world during the coronavirus outbreak. Large gatherings in the United States were shut down in March because of the coronavirus. The campaign event was scheduled over the protests of local health officials and as COVID-19 cases spike in many states. Also expected were crowds of protesters in Tulsa.
Now, the unemployment rate stands at 13.3%, based on the most recent monthly report. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases has soared to about 2.2 million. The number of deaths reported in the U.S. has surpassed 119,000. Outrage over the criminal justice system's treatment of minorities following the death of George Floyd and other African Americans has spawned protests around the nation. Only about a quarter of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction.
Trump's visit has also raised fears of clashes between protesters and Trump supporters. Officials expect a crowd of 100,000 people or more in downtown Tulsa. Trump will speak inside the BOK Center as well as at an outdoor stage. But his audience also will be voters in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida.
Trump has generally held his campaign rallies in swing states or in Democratic-leaning states such as Colorado or New Mexico that he hopes to flip this November. Oklahoma fits none of those categories. The last Democratic candidate to emerge victorious there in a presidential election was Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Trump won the state with more than 65% of the vote in the 2016 election.
The rally was originally scheduled for Friday, but it was moved back a day following an uproar that it otherwise would have happened on Juneteenth, and in a city where a 1921 white-on-Black attack killed as many as 300 people. In the blocks between the BOK Center and the Juneteenth celebration, people gathered Friday evening at two spots on separate corners to paint murals on brick walls of buildings. At one, Tai Tindall, a Tulsa artist in her 40s, took a break as others finished painting a giant "Black Lives Matter" sign stretching the length of a building.
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