Summer-Size Crowds for Trump in New Jersey Beach Town

It was four hours before President Donald Trump was expected to arrive for his first rally in New Jersey since taking office. But a sea of ticket holders adorned in Trump paraphernalia, many of whom had waited overnight in the bitter cold, were closer to the moment of reckoning: Would they get inside before the convention center reached its 7,400-person capacity?

Those at the front of the line who were first to make their way toward a security checkpoint, as Queen’s “We Will Rock You” blared from speakers, were jubilant.

“I’m so excited,” said Traci Dunham, 53, who grew up in nearby Wildwood Crest, New Jersey. “I love him.”

Ashlee Estrada, 12, had slept overnight in the parking lot — “It was really, really cold” — with her brother and mother, an immigrant from Peru who became a citizen five years ago. The family lives in Wildwood and said they were excited to be a part of history.

“It’s the president,” she said as she headed inside, “coming to this little town.”

A carnival atmosphere filled the boardwalk nearby, as Trump supporters mingled near a blocklong corridor of T-shirt and button vendors. Some taunted a small group of protesters who were cordoned off in a parking lot below, resulting in a volley of competing chants.

“Four more years,” Trump’s supporters shouted.

“Dump That Trump,” the protesters answered.

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Marianne Bryant, a lawyer from Voorhees, New Jersey, said she took the day off work to be part of the protest — her first.

“I feel like this nation is definitely headed on the wrong track,” Bryant, 68, said. “I haven’t been this scared since the Vietnam War. I don’t think we can take four more years of him.”

The protesters were dwarfed by the thousands of supporters who had turned out to be part of the rally, even if they could not get inside. Two Jumbotrons were set up for the overflow crowd to watch the rally.

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Those at the very front of the line had arrived about 2 p.m. Sunday and had spent two days and nights bundled in blankets, “Keep America Great” flags and woolen Trump 2020 hats. By midday Tuesday, the excitement in the line had reached fever pitch.

Trump’s decision to stage one of his raucous rallies in Wildwood, motivated by a desire to support a local congressman who had recently switched parties, upended the usual rhythms of this beach community about 160 miles south of New York City.

Seasonal workers were back on the job. Motels reopened and restaurants and bars awaked from winter hibernation.

The LED lights on the towering Ferris wheel near the convention center have been specially programmed to pulse in patterns of red, white and blue.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, regardless of your political view,” Nick Holland, 29, said Monday as he worked the front desk of the local recreation center.

As his impeachment trial unfolds in Washington, Trump is headed into what in some ways is enemy territory. New Jersey is a Democratic stronghold where Hillary Clinton easily beat him statewide by 14 percentage points and where a so-called blue wave helped to flip four Republican congressional seats in 2018.

Most of Trump’s campaign rallies have been held in states where a majority of voters supported him in 2016, and are critical battleground states before this year’s election.

But Wildwood, in Cape May County, is in a district far more friendly to Republicans.

It leans conservative and is represented by Jeff Van Drew, a freshman congressman who opposed impeachment and last month defected from the Democratic Party to join the Republicans with a pledge of “undying support” for Trump.

In turn, the president promised to campaign for Van Drew, and the rally was announced not long after the congressman switched parties. Van Drew is expected to travel with the president to the rally at the Wildwood Convention Center, where they will both address the crowd, officials said.

Many people in line said it would be their first Trump rally.

Russ Hickman, 55, of Dias Creek, New Jersey, was fifth in line. He works in maintenance at the public school district in Van Drew’s hometown of Dennis, said he voted for Van Drew as a Democrat and would eagerly support him for reelection as a Republican.

“I figured he was pretty much that anyway,” he said. “It just makes me pulling his lever a little easier.”

Protesters began gathering for a counter rally near the ocean just after 3 p.m.

“There’s definitely way more of a progressive movement down here than people realize,” said Shayla Woolfort, a chairwoman of Cape May County Indivisible, which organized the protest.

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Martin Luther King III, the oldest son of the civil rights leader, is expected to be the keynote speaker. Several of Van Drew’s Democratic opponents, including Ashley Bennett, Will Cunningham, Brigid Callahan Harrison and Amy Kennedy, are also scheduled to address the crowd.

“The racism, the violence, the corruption — we reject all of it,” an Indivisible organizer, Cassandra Gatelein, said of the Trump administration. “We definitely want to stand in solidarity with all the marginalized communities that he is hurting.”

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Like many other people involved in the local planning for the event, Tracey DuFault, the director of the Greater Wildwood Chamber of Commerce, said the rally was an economic boon for a tourist town with a wintertime population of about 5,000. It is believed to be the first time a sitting president has ever visited Wildwood.

“I think people just want to be in the area because it is such a historic event,” DuFault said.

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When she was in her 20s, DuFault worked for Trump at his bankrupt Atlantic City casinos, making arrangements for high-rolling gamblers.

“I knew his first wife. I knew his second wife. I did not meet his third,” DuFault said. “It was a fun job.”

As head of the Chamber of Commerce, she spent the last several weeks updating and publicizing a list of businesses that still had available overnight lodging. She said about 20 hotels and motels had either reopened or booked guests on floors that are typically closed in winter in order to meet the surge in room requests.

Joe Tartamosa, 43, and his 16-year-old son, Nick, had left their home in Woodbury Heights, to arrive at 4:30 a.m. Monday to lock in a spot close to the front. Tartamosa said he hoped the event would instill in his son some of Trump’s conservative views.

“I believe in his values and what he’s doing,” Tartamosa said of the president. “I believe it’s better than what the other side has to offer.”

The Trump campaign paid $7,600 to rent the facility and will also be responsible for other costs, including increased security, said John Siciliano, executive director of the Wildwoods Tourism Authority, which operates the convention center.

“It’s just a huge deal that a president of the United States is going to visit our town,” Siciliano said.

Wildwood is best known for its wide sandy beaches, an expansive boardwalk and an assortment of amusement and water parks that operate on oceanside piers.

At 11 a.m. each summer morning, loudspeakers blast the “The Star-Spangled Banner” and Kate Smith’s rendition of “God Bless America.” The beloved tradition came under scrutiny last year after revelations that Smith’s recording catalog featured racist songs, but the former mayor said the patriotic medley would not be altered.

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Maggie Warner Wisniewski, a spokeswoman for Morey’s Piers, which operates several hotels and amusement parks, said it became clear after rooms in the company’s Starlux hotel sold out that they would need to open the Blue Palm, a 52-room inn normally closed in winter.

“We sold out very quickly,” she said.

She declined to share her thoughts about Trump, but said his visit is no doubt good for the city’s reputation. “It’s just kind of putting Wildwood on the map,” Wisniewski said.

It’s also been good for business, said Eric Hanson, the manager of the Blue Water Grille restaurant. He and his mixologists crafted a bipartisan menu of drinks for the occasion, with names like subpoena-colada, MAGA-margarita and impeachment punch.

“You’ve got to have fun with it,” he said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .