Former President Donald Trump gave supporters and fans some love at a college football game on Saturday, slinging the pigskin and crashing a tailgate party.
Trump attended the Iowa-Iowa State game Saturday afternoon, but beforehand, he stopped at a fraternity on campus to toss a football around and mingle with supporters.
The leading 2024 GOP frontrunner went to the Alpha Gamma Rho house, cooked some burgers, and served up food and refreshments ahead of the game, which didn’t begin until mid-afternoon. He also signed several footballs.
“This is some turnout,” Trump told a reporter. “I guess the youth likes Trump.”
The former president also drew some cheers when he visited a tailgater and got in on some burger-flipping.
Trump also generated cheers when he actually entered Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, Iowa, for the annual grudge match.
“It’s cool that he came to this game,” an Iowa Hawkeye fan quoted by the Des Moines Register said.
“I’m a financial guy, and when he was president, there was a lot of positives and a lot of good things going on,” noted Brad Lewis, a resident of Dubuque. “And so, to me, that’s important. People love him or hate him, but you know, he’s done a lot of good things for the country.”
Trump’s next-closest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, was also at the game.
“We’re having a good time,” he told reporters, according to the Associated Press. “It’s quite an atmosphere, probably a little bit more civilized than the Florida-Georgia game.”
Iowa knocked off Iowa State 20-13.
Trump faces several indictments, which millions of his supporters see as entirely political in nature. But despite his legal woes, he’s not suffering in the polls and, in fact, leads President Joe Biden in several recent surveys.
“The country’s frustration with inflation and wariness toward the idea of Vice President Kamala Harris being an 80-year-old’s heartbeat from the presidency are two of the many drags on President Biden’s reelection chances,” Democratic pollsters Douglas Schoen and Carly Cooperman wrote in a Monday column published online by The Hill.
And though there are a myriad of problems and issues creating political headwinds for the octogenarian president, the economy is the number one concern among a majority of voters and, specifically, their own personal economic situations.
“Inflation fatigue has fostered widespread economic pessimism,” Schoen and Cooperman wrote. “Only a third of voters (33 percent) believe the U.S. economy is headed in the right direction, while most (58 percent) say it’s on the wrong track.”
They added: “In addition, voters are nearly twice as likely to say that their personal financial situation has worsened over the last year (42 percent) rather than improved (22 percent).”
As such, Trump has now moved ahead of Biden in four national surveys, though Biden is within the margin of error in at least two of them.
The latest poll from Schoen Cooperman Research showed Trump with 45 percent to Biden’s 44 percent in a hypothetical rematch.
“These results are mirrored in three other major national surveys, including one from Emerson College Polling that showed Trump (46 percent) beating Biden (44 percent) in a hypothetical matchup,” The Western Journal reported.
The latest McLaughlin & Associates poll has Trump well ahead of Biden, 47 to 43 percent. And the most recent Reuters/Ipsos survey found Trump beating Biden 38 percent to 32 percent if the election were held this week.
The poor showing for Biden comes as more Americans are being abused by higher prices for everything they need, including food, gasoline, clothing, and housing/rent, rising crime, and a porous southwestern border that has led to a record number of migrants crossing illegally, with tens of thousands being shipped to blue cities from the border.