An estimated 17,000 people registered for tickets into the Trump rally at the Minneapolis/St Paul airport in Minnesota on Sunday, Nov. 6, 2016. The Sun Country Airlines hangar was filled to capacity, leaving thousands outside in the overflow areas around the hangar. Two hours before scheduled 2pm appearance of Trump, walking from the security area to the end of the line took almost ten minutes, and once one made it to the end of the line, people were still joining the crowd to get in.
When Trump’s plane arrived outside the hangar, the crowd erupted with deafening cheers. Chanting “USA! USA! USA!” and “Trump! Trump! Trump!,” the crowd enthusiastically welcomed the candidate to Minnesota.
Commenting on the fact that he was visiting a traditionally “blue” state, Trump said: “These pundits…they keep saying ‘why would he be going to Minnesota?…I LOVE Minnesota. The reason I am here is because I know what is going to happen. In two days we’re going to win the great state of Minnesota and we are going to win back the White House.”
Going through a litany of what he believes are failures of the current administration and Hillary Clinton, Trump rallied his supporters by promising to “repeal the Obamacare disaster,” rebuild “our badly depleted military,” to build a wall and secure America’s borders, bring back jobs and fix the broken immigration system.
Alpha News spoke with some of the events’ attendees in the hours leading up to the rally, and asked how far they had driven to be at the rally. Many responded that they were from the Twin Cities, so had only driven less than hour. One attested that he had driven four hours; another said he had come from Wasila, Alaska.
Contrary to the media reports that Trump is disliked by women, there were pink “Women for Trump” signs being waved all through the rally crowd. There also were a large number of young people in the crowd as well as entire families with kids in strollers, sporting “Trump 2016” shirts.
As the rally parking became full, people got creative with their parking choices, including parking along freeway entrance ramps around the airport near the event. Afterwards, traffic was snarled as the thousands of Trump supporters made their way onto Highways 62 and I-494.
Andrea Mayer-Bruestle
Andrea Mayer-Bruestle is a former writer for Alpha News.
