An official in New Jersey who claim that Donald Trump drew between 80,000 to 100,000 people to a beach front rally in Wildwood earlier this month, now says that estimate is a reflection of the number of people who were in the town.
The Associated Press had reported that up to 100,000 people attended the rally citing Lisa Fagan, spokesperson for the city of Wildwood. Fagan said she arrived at her estimate “based off her own observations having seen ‘dozens’ of other events in the same space.”
However, videos show there were far fewer people in attendance than what Fagan claim.
Asked about the discrepancy, Fagan provided Insider NJ with a statement from Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano (R) explaining that the estimate was based on the number of people in town that day, including those in bars and restaurants, not the number of attendees at the rally.
“As a tourist town, we speak in tourism numbers,” Troiano wrote. “When we see that volume of people attending a beach event, we know that 80,000+ people are in our town. We see a quarter of a million visitors every weekend in the summer on our 1.89-mile boardwalk, not to mention our five-mile island, so we know what that volume looks like. They were watching and listening from the beach and boardwalk, in bars and restaurants, at hotels and second homes. People even lined up along the streets parade-style. We defer to the Trump Campaign for the exact count on the beach.”
But Trump—who has a history of lying about his crowd size—and his team said the crowd had exceeded 100,000.
Speaking outside the Manhattan courthouse where he’s on criminal trial, Trump claimed that “over 100,000 people” saw him speak in Wildwood.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung also told Newsweek that “over 100,000 people patriots” had shown up to hear Trump speak.
