Trump Diehards Turn Out For First Texas MAGA Rally Since Election Loss – San Antonio Express-News

“He’s brought us all together,” Frazier said, adorned in Trump gear, gesturing to the hundreds of RVs, campers and tents spread out in the grassy lots around the fairgrounds, much like the scene at a music festival with top performers. “It’s like a family here.”

Frazier, a 65-year-old retiree who worked at a Goodyear tire factory in Ohio for nearly four decades, laughs at the idea of being compared to the Dead Heads of old who would travel the nation following the Grateful Dead. He’s closing in on his 50th Trump rally.

But Frazier allows there is one similarity: that sense of being around hundreds of like-minded people who aren’t judging you for who you are, even if just for a day or two.

“It’s like a family here,” he said.

While Trump has been out of the White House for just over a year, he continues to crisscross the nation, holding both festival-like rallies and exclusive fundraisers that hint he will run for president again in 2024. Before speaking to thousands in Conroe at his 8th MAGA rally since he left office, he is hitting high-dollar fundraisers in Houston and near Lake Conroe where his wealthiest supporters are paying as much as $100,000 per couple to be near him.

It’s no surprise Trump would pick Montgomery County for just his 2nd free rally in 2022.

The county is the only one in Texas with at least 100,000 voters in which Trump won 70 percent or more of the vote in 2020 over President Joe Biden. That makes it the reddest of red counties in a red state that Trump carried by 6 percentage points.

Jason Fochtman, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

For Conroe resident Lee Wilhite, the hours before Trump’s speech were about tailgating outside his RV like before a football game with dozens of fellow fans.

Wilhite, a first timer to a Trump rally, said there’s a laid back, blue-collar vibe to the gathering. He said coming to the rally with his wife felt like taking a stand.

“We’re trying to do our part to do something for our country,” Wilhite said.

He said he’s not sure if Trump is running again, but in the meantime wants the former president to see the movement he’s created.

The rally comes at a critical time in the Texas Republican Primary season, too. Trump is supporting Gov. Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. Trump has endorsed all three in the March 1 primary, but they all have serious GOP challengers.

As he did in Arizona for local candidates, Trump gave Abbott, Paxton and Miller all a chance to speak the crowd to help them build momentum, with early voting just two weeks away.

But there was no doubt who the crowd wanted to hear. When Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless The USA” blared from the speakers and Trump took the stage, the sea of fire-engine red MAGA hats roared approval as he launched into his usual claims about stolen elections, Biden’s failings, and illegal immigration.

“He’s right on target on what I believe in,” said Mike Boatman, who drove in from Indiana on Wednesday to camp out before what marked his 29th Trump rally.

Boatman said he never went to a political rally in his life until Trump ran for president. He said the guy just understands what working-class people want to hear.

When he’s part of the sea of Trump supporters, he said he knows where the people around him stand.

“To me, the rallies are getting bigger and bigger,” Boatman said. “I think we’re seeing more popularity than when he was president.”

Boatman and Frazier are hardly alone in traveling the country to see Trump. They have an unofficial group called “The Front Row Joes” with about two dozen members, including some who have been to more than 70 rallies. Frazier said he took over as the leader of the group after its founder, Randal J. Thom of Minnesota, died in late 2020.

Frazier said they all met each other at Trump rallies. Now they tailgate together and take care of one another.

“He created this,” Frazier said. “I just want to keep seeing him again and again.”