MOBILE, Ala. — It was immigration, not segregation, that brought some 20,000 southerners — far fewer than predicted — out for Donald Trump on Friday night, but the ghost of George Wallace loomed large.

Wallace, an avowed segregationist, was the last presidential candidate to win electoral votes as a third-party candidate. The threat of Trump doing so, propelled by a hardline immigration stance that many have condemned as racist, looms over the Republican Party now as it did over the Democratic Party then, even as the enthusiasm of his following, for once, fell far short of expectations.


Wallace carried five Southern states, and Trump, who is leading early national polls in the race for the Republican nomination, touted his leads in Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida and Texas.

Trump also panned birthright citizenship as a bad deal for the U.S., saying, “We’re the only place just about that’s stupid enough to do it.” Trump’s recently released immigration plan calls for ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, according to the legal consensus, though Trump disputes that point.

Trump invited Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, one of Congress’s most ardent immigration hardliners who helped the businessman craft his immigration plan, to the podium, where the two embraced.

He also attacked his favorite punching bag, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, on the issue. “ Jeb Bush, ugh,” said Trump, pausing for dramatic effect, before calling the former governor “totally in favor of Common Core, weak on immigration.”

Praising a woman who had brought Trump’s book “Art of the Deal” to the rally, he said, “I’ve got to get her the hell out of here, she’s so beautiful.”

He went on to say, “I will protect women. It’s so important to me.”

There were also vestiges of Wallace’s Alabama, including on the sample editions of “The First Freedom” newspaper one man handed out to drivers as they entered the parking lot. The paper’s front page included a story about “black-on-white crime in South Carolina” and an editor’s note about German media’s silence about “the actual programs these peaceful ‘neo-nazis’ stand for.”

The vast majority of supporters where white: of over 1,000 people waiting to enter on the east of the Ladd Peebles Stadium at 5 p.m., eight were black.

A black pastor opened the rally with an invocation, asking, “What if we could replace hate with love?” He was followed by an all-black middle school student council that led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Marty Hughes, 47, wore a camouflage hat with Confederate flag detailing and said he liked Trump’s stances on immigration and taxes. He called the removal this year of Confederate flags from government property across much of the South “stupidity” and said he didn’t think a President Trump would stand for it. He named Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and neurosurgeon Ben Carson as other candidates who appealed to him.

Trump’s appeal to Leo Renaldo, is, “That he’s going to send them packing,” explained the 65-year-old, who drove four hours from Mississippi for the event, before his wife interjected, telling him, “Don’t say that.”

“Legal immigration is fine,” added Renaldo.

“He tells it like it is,” said Bob House, 57, a maintenance manager, of Trump’s appeal. “None of this political correct stuff.”

Earlier, the city said it expected 40,000 supporters at the rally, but various media outlets estimated that the total was in the ballpark of 15-20,000, leaving the stadium looking less than half full. Police officers at the rally said they would not be providing a crowd estimate.

The Trump campaign, which had said it expected 36,000 attendees, referred POLITICO to Colby Cooper, chief of staff to the mayor of Mobile, who said the city’s estimate was 30,000 attendees. “It’s an approximate number,” he said.

'He tells it like it is,' said Bob House, 57, a maintenance manager, of Trump’s appeal. 'None of this political correct stuff.' | Getty

“This is one of the largest events Mobile has successfully pulled off, next to our Mardi Gras,” Cooper added. “We’re grateful to the Trump campaign.”

Trump has repeatedly claimed that 15,000 people attended a rally he held at a convention center in Phoenix, Arizona, in July, but the room’s capacity was just over 2,000 people. A convention center staffer at that event told POLITICO that the fire marshal had permitted just over 4,000 people to enter the room for the rally.

Trump continued to show a flair for showmanship, as he has at previous rallies. “If it rains I’ll take off my hat and prove once and for all that it’s real,” he said toward the outset of the rally, before following through and showing the crowd his hair, to loud cheers.

Before the event, his plane circled the stadium, eliciting a standing ovation.

It wasn’t the only aircraft to take advantage of the captive audience. Another plane, funded by a Bush-supporting Super PAC and trailing the message, “Trump 4 higher taxes. Jeb 4 prez,” made multiple flybys, as did a plane with a banner hawking shrimp baskets.