In Alabama, Trump Relives His Glory Days (This Time With Some Empty Seats)

The Deep South was the birthplace of the mega MAGA rally. How do people on the Gulf feel about President Trump now?

On Friday night, President Trump turned up in Mobile, Ala., to give a campaign rally five weeks ahead of the midterm elections.

What on earth was he doing all the way down there?

"I'm really here because, sometimes," he said, "you've got to pay respect to the people that loved you right from the beginning."

The indoor arena at the University of South Alabama purred.

As Republican prospects for November have darkened, Mr. Trump has started to really throw himself into the campaign trail. So far, that trail has led him to some interesting destinations. A Republican president, campaigning in ruby-red Alabama? Texas? Oklahoma? What's next, Nebraska? Yes, actually, that is where he will be on Monday.

Mobile occupies a mythic place in Trump lore, though. This is, in some sense, the birthplace of the MAGA rally, that traveling roadshow of Mr. Trump's that would come to define the next decade of national political life in America.

"I don't know if you know. It sort of all began here," Mr. Trump reminded his audience as soon as he took the stage Friday.

When he came here in August 2015, his rise had only just begun. It was shortly after the first Republican primary debate. He was still duking it out against Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz, and still being treated by much of the news media as little more than a tulip craze.

Mr. Trump's campaign apparatus at the time was small and scrappy and run out of his tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. His campaign made the potentially embarrassing move of staging his event in Mobile at a massive, open-air football stadium. They were vindicated when some 30,000 people showed up, much to the shock of the establishment and the candidate himself.

"It was a big friggin' deal," recalled Michael Glassner, a political operative who was there working for Mr. Trump that day.

"I've either been on presidential campaigns, or been around them, since 1988, and there never really had been something on that scale for a primary candidate, in modern American politics, to my knowledge," Mr. Glassner said.

It was the moment he realized that the Trump phenomenon "was going to break all of the rules" of politics, he added.

One aide who traveled with Mr. Trump to Mobile that day was Corey Lewandowski. "I was in his vehicle," Mr. Lewandowski recalled. "We passed a number of homes that were in communities that weren't affluent at all, and there were people outside sitting in their chairs, holding handmade signs, waving, supporting. It was very, very humbling."

The significance of that moment, he said, was that "at a venue in the Deep South, with a candidate who many chastised or criticized for being married three times, and said didn't quote unquote uphold traditional Republican values, that clearly was not on the minds of the people of Alabama. They turned out in record numbers." This was a sign of much to come.

The president relived those glorious days from the stage Friday night.

"We packed the stadium and the rest was history," he said, "right here in Mobile."

But that was then.

These days, Mr. Trump is in political trouble, even with members of his famously loyal base. The indoor arena that he spoke at on Friday was a fraction of the size of the football stadium he once spoke in -- security concerns are such that he rarely speaks in outdoor venues anymore -- and still the place was not full. Some upper sections were almost completely empty.

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Mr. Trump's poll numbers have been falling for months. On Friday, The New York Times reported that he personally instructed his budget director to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him and his presidency.

A day before the rally in Mobile, this reporter took a circuitous drive along the Gulf Coast and detected signs along the way that Donald Trump's decade-long love affair with the Deep South may be wilting.

"I'm very disheartened right now," a 76-year-old, three-time Trump-voting woman named Kris Rouse said while grocery shopping at a supersized Walmart in the Mississippi town of Pass Christian.

"Most of the things that he said were going to happen have not happened," she said as she pushed her cart around the produce aisle. "The gas has gone up, the groceries have gone up, and my taxes on my property have gone up. I'm a senior citizen on a fixed income, and it's hard right now."

She retired after 33 years of working in a local bank branch, but has since picked up a part-time job as a door hostess at Waffle House because, she said, "it's necessary."

She is done with Mr. Trump, she said, and won't be voting for anyone this November. Some of her friends are sticking with the president, but there are lots of "others who are just like me," she explained.

But what about the president's promise that he is going to send everybody a check for $5,000?

"Nope," she answered. "I don't think we're going to get anything else from Trump."

(On Friday, in Mobile, Mr. Trump said again that he was going to send out checks for $5,000, and reminded his audience that he sent a check for $1,776 to members of the military. The $5,000 giveaway would cost more than $1 trillion and likely require congressional approval, for which there seems to be very little.)

Asked what she made of the big ballroom project the president is hard at work on back in Washington, Ms. Rouse laughed bitterly and gave a one-word reply.

"Ridiculous."

Over in the bread aisle, there was a little more sympathy and jingoism to be found.

"He has made some mistakes, like they all have," said Skip King, a 75-year-old retired construction worker. He allowed that gas and groceries had gotten more expensive, but said that was a price worth paying if it meant toppling the Iranian regime. He only wished Mr. Trump would hurry up.

"We need to quit playing handsies," the old construction worker said as he tossed a box of Jiffy corn muffin mix into his cart. "We are the most powerful nation on this planet, and we need to prove it, and show it, and show no mercy."

"I'd still vote for him," he concluded.

A few miles up the coastline, in the town of Ocean Springs, Ala., at the corner of Government Street and Washington Street, a man and a woman wearing red MAGA hats were stopping people at random to talk about "the importance of voting in the midterms," as the man put it.

His name was Adam Francisco. He was 43 years old. The woman said her name on the internet was "Freedom and Whiskey," and that she could not give her actual name for "safety" reasons. She was 30 years old. Both were MAGA influencers. Each held a camera and a foam-topped microphone on a grip. They were on a mission, driving around the entirety of "the Gulf of America" to warn about Democratic socialism, to remind people why they loved Mr. Trump in the first place, and to hopefully get some good viral content, of course.

They stopped two elderly women on the corner. A friendly chat ensued. Then the women strolled on. "Pro-choice Democrats," Mr. Francisco said.

He acknowledged that gas prices are a huge liability for the president. "If he doesn't get them down by between now and Nov. 3, I'm going to say that I'm a little concerned about the Republicans' chances," he said. "I'm not in denial about it."

The last town in Mississippi before the Louisiana state line is a small and swampy one called Pearlington. It's the sort of place where alligators swim in the bayou behind the local dive bar -- and the bartender swims with them, or so she says.

The road out of town leads to a broken-down bridge that used to be the way to New Orleans. Beside the bridge is a gas station with three pumps. The two women working behind the counter there Wednesday morning shook their heads slowly at the mention of Mr. Trump. One said it had never cost her this much to fill up her truck. Asked how many people around these parts had turned on the president, she estimated half.