Vice President JD Vance has found himself on the receiving end of President Donald Trump’s famous fixation on crowd size.
Trump has been telling allies that Vance “has not drawn large numbers to events that he is headlining,” according to people with knowledge of the private conversations, an account that surfaced Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, as the two men split the map in the final stretch before the Tuesday, Nov. 3, midterm elections.
The division of labor showed on Thursday, Oct. 29. Trump rallied in Rock Hill, S.C., for Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., who was appointed after the death of her brother, Lindsey, and who faces Democrat Annie Andrews. Vance spent the same day in Texas, where he delivered a speech in Weatherford for Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton.
Vance used that speech to go after Paxton’s opponent. “Now James Talarico has also said that he really has to grapple with his masculinity in addition to his whiteness,” the vice president said, adding, “And you know, James, the good news is, there ain’t a whole lot to grapple with.”
“We’ll See How It Goes”
The White House sees no daylight between the two men. “Donald Trump is the hardest working person in the country, followed by JD Vance,” White House spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez said. Both men, she added, are raising money and working to get candidates elected.
Handicappers make Vance the favorite for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, but Trump has repeatedly declined to endorse him outright. At an Oct. 20 Oval Office event with Vance present, Trump said of an endorsement: “He’s a very talented person, and he’s a very good person, but we’ve literally, I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it.” He added, “We have to get through the midterms. We’ll see how it goes.” A day earlier, Vance told Mark Halperin on the 2WAY platform, “Look I think if I run the president will endorse me.”
The Rooms Keep Getting Smaller
Vance drew about 200 people to a Monday, Oct. 26, rally at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport in Belgrade, Mont., held for him and other Montana Republicans, according to local reports. Two hecklers standing behind him were removed after shouting about the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. He spoke for just under 30 minutes.
His fall schedule has run through smaller rooms. Michael Whatley, the Republican candidate for North Carolina’s open U.S. Senate seat, got a Sept. 21 appearance from Vance at the Koury Convention Center in Greensboro, N.C.; a local NPR affiliate reported the crowd at about 300 in a hall that holds 3,000. Three days earlier, he headlined an RNC midterm event at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, with modest turnout and Iowa Republican congressional candidate Chris McGowan as the warm-up act. For Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, Vance appeared at the LevelUp Training Complex, an indoor sports training facility in Monroe, Mich., and drew another crowd for Rogers in Howell, Mich., on Oct. 27. There are no official attendance figures to compare with Trump’s.
Rows of empty white folding chairs filled a widely shared Oct. 13 post on X, taken outside a hangar at Tyler Pounds Regional Airport in Tyler, Texas, in the minutes before Vance took the stage. Trump’s political operation hit back through the Trump War Room account on X, dismissing the post as fake news. The account also posted video of its own showing a crowd cheering the vice president’s arrival, and the available material does not establish how many people attended. Paxton, meanwhile, is in a close race with Democrat James Talarico. Talarico leads by 2.8 points in RealClearPolling’s average.
Trump’s Answer to the Empty Seats
Trump has made his own case in public. He told a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday, Oct. 27, that he stages the events every night and encounters the same scene wherever he travels, with big screens outside and thousands and thousands of people. “It’s massive crowds,” he said. That night’s North Carolina venue filled up with nobody left waiting outside, while other stops have left empty sections even in modest venues.
Several areas of an upper deck sat empty at his Oct. 3 rally in Vandalia, Ohio, according to a report by New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers. Trump called for the arrest of journalists, writing on Truth Social that the paper and other outlets should be arrested for dishonesty and a disservice to the country. He also wrote that the arena was maxed out and that people in the upper sections always migrate down to the main floor.
Control of the House, and possibly the Senate, looks likely to slip away, and Republicans are bracing for it. Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot in RealClearPolling’s national average, 52.1% to 43.3%. Unfavorable polls and negative stories have pushed the president into a dark mood, leaving staffers on edge, and some GOP candidates have kept their distance from him on the trail.
The Kansas Rally That Came Back
Two White House officials and a Republican source said a midday rally set for Saturday, Oct. 31, at the regional airport in Salina, Kan., had been called off. The Republican National Committee (RNC) said he would spend a “72-hour sprint” holding rallies by phone instead. Trump reversed course a day later.
He rescheduled back-to-back rallies for Sunday, Nov. 1, first in Dubuque, Iowa, then at the Salina airport. The Dubuque event was set to begin at 12:30 p.m. CT with Trump speaking at 2 p.m.; doors in Salina opened at 3:30 p.m. CT for a 5:30 p.m. start, with Trump speaking at 7 p.m. The RNC said the replacement tele-rallies had been planned for nearly 20 states, and anyone who had responded for Saturday’s event had to re-reply for the rescheduled one.
The Salina stop was Trump’s second Kansas trip in two weeks on behalf of Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, whose race against Democrat Adam Hamilton is projected a toss-up. Trump headlined an Oct. 19 rally in Park City, near Wichita, and Vance campaigned for Marshall in Topeka on Oct. 26. Trump also rallied Friday, Oct. 30, at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Fla., for gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds and Sen. Ashley Moody.