Trump at Madison Square Garden: Iconic venue has played host to many campaign gatherings near Election Day

Former President Trump will bring his showmanship Sunday to a campaign rally at New York City’s iconic Madison Square Garden, an event that is expected to draw thousands of supporters. 

The rally in “the world’s most famous arena” comes as Trump targets a deep-blue state that last backed a Republican in 1984. Home to the NBA’s New York Knicks and NHL’s New York Rangers, the Garden has a long tradition of hosting political events close to Election Day. 

In 1968, segregationist platform candidate and Alabama Gov. George Wallace hosted a campaign rally at the venue a week before the election, which was eventually won by Richard Nixon, a Republican. 

Nixon hosted a Halloween campaign rally at the Garden, a week before his Election Day victory during one of the most turbulent periods in American history. 

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On Oct. 31, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson addressed fellow Democrats at the “old” MSG venue, which was 16 blocks north of the current Garden. 

“I have come to New York in the final hours of this campaign,” Johnson said. “I come to say to you once again that your president will need your prayers and your president will need your support, and your president will also need Democratic congressmen in the House and Bob Kennedy in the Senate.”

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Before Johnson, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower came to the Garden in October 1956 to rally his troops to re-elect the Eisenhower/Nixon ticket. It worked. 

During his speech, Eisenhower addressed the economy and the Cold War with the Soviet Union, which began several years earlier.

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“There is, of course, nothing amusing when the opposition’s political techniques are extended to world affairs.,” he said. “They urge a vigorous and realistic policy towards the Communist empire – and they suggest that we begin, in our relations with the Soviet Union, by trusting our national safety to agreements that have no effective safeguards and no controls.”

 “I respond to such propositions with one firm belief. There is no political campaign that justifies the declaration of a moratorium on common sense,” he added.”

Days before defeating Republican nominee Thomas Dewey of New York in 1948, President Harry Truman, a Democrat, visited MSG, where he said his opponent kept following him across the country. 

“The White House physician told me not to worry. He said: ‘You keep right on your way. There is one place where that fellow is not going to follow you – and that’s in the White House,'” said Truman before assailing the Republican Party. 

“The Republican candidate can follow me all the way from Los Angeles to Madison Square Garden, but the Republican record makes it certain that he will still be trailing along behind when the votes are counted,” he said. “He is doing all he can to make you forget that record. He doesn’t dare talk about it. I have never in my life been in a campaign where the opposition refused absolutely to discuss the issues of the campaign. I can’t understand that sort of an approach. But after I had analyzed the situation I came to the conclusion that the record of the Republican Party is much too bad to talk about.”

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On Oct. 28, 1940, Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke to supporters before winning re-election against Republican nominee Wendell Wilkie.

In his remarks, FDR addressed the Great Depression and the Second World War taking place in Europe and his increase in defense spending amid threats from abroad. 

He accused Republicans of playing politics with America’s defense as war raged in Europe and Asia amid pressure to isolate the U.S. to stay out of the conflict. 

“I say that the Republican leaders played politics with defense in 1938 and 1939,” said FDR. “I say that they are playing politics with our national security today.”

Herbert Hoover addressed a crowd at MSG on Oct. 22, 1928, before winning his election. Despite the long list of presidents that have graced the venue, MSG has also hosted some controversial gatherings, including the notorious “Pro-American Rally” of 1939. 

The event was organized by the pro-Nazi German American Bund and was attended by thousands in the lead-up to World War II. Days later, the Garden hosted a Communist Party rally. 

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