OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump endured intense temperatures on Thursday night to watch the presumed GOP nominee.
According to local media, 11 people who were waiting for Trump were admitted to nearby hospitals by Phoenix Fire officials because they were ill from the heat.
Ben Brown of Arizona’s ABC15 reported, “I’ve seen so far at least 3 people carried off on stretches due to the heat as they wait in line in the sun to get into Donald Trump’s event… it’s 102 degrees out.” Brown captured on camera one of those eleven Trump supporters being wheeled off to the hospital on a stretcher.
When Trump spoke at an event that Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA hosted, the local press reported that “many attendees had been waiting outside the event since the early morning hours, long before Phoenix hit 110 degrees around 1:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon.”
There are currently “excessive heat warnings and watches [being] extended from the central valley down through southern California’s deserts, southern Nevada, and southern and western Arizona and into Utah, affecting over 29 million people” due to the heat wave that is affecting the southwest, according to Axios.
This was supposed to be a town hall, and Trump is slated to field questions from the engaged crowd. Since 2022, when he visited the state to advocate for a group of candidates he had sponsored but who all lost their contests, Trump has not conducted a campaign in Arizona, a crucial swing state in 2024.
Here is another person getting an IV pic.twitter.com/QxwNuwEy7p
— Ben Brown (@bdbrown473) June 6, 2024
The rally comes as a brand new poll found that over 25% of respondents revealed that Trump’s conviction in his New York hush money case increased their likelihood of endorsing the presumed GOP nominee.
“The survey from Emerson College Polling released Thursday revealed that 4 in 10 voters said the former president’s conviction in his first criminal case made no impact on whom they will vote for in November,” The Hill reported.
Thirty-three percent of them stated they would be less inclined to support the leader of the Republican Party as a result of the Manhattan jury’s decision to convict him.
“Trump’s support in our polling remained the same before and after his conviction,” said Spencer Kimball, the executive director of Emerson College Polling.
Last Thursday, a New York jury rendered a historic verdict, finding the former president guilty of 34 felonies related to falsifying corporate records. Trump has persisted in saying he did nothing wrong, and his staff will probably file an appeal with the court.
In the study, 46% of registered voters still favor Trump, reflecting the stability of his base of support. In the poll conducted in April, his percentage remained the same. His advantage against his primary opponent in the general election, President Biden, shrank from three to one point.
According to the poll, most Republicans (55 percent) said their conviction makes them more likely to support the former president, while the majority of Democrats (51 percent) said it makes them less likely to support Trump.
Roughly 41% of independents claimed it had an effect. About 38% of respondents indicated they would be less likely to cast a ballot for the former president, while 21% said they would be more likely to do so.
On July 11, which is just four days before the Republican National Convention in 2024, Trump is scheduled to be sentenced. According to 40% of respondents in the survey, he ought to serve time in prison. 15% said he should be placed on probation, and 25% thought he should pay a fine.
The survey was administered to one thousand registered voters on June 4–5.
The poll comes as Trump’s campaign has formally sent vice presidential vetting papers to a short list of potential running mates, and the list includes mostly familiar names.
Multiple news outlets report that Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), plus Reps. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), have received the forms, as have North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
NBC News claimed that the process is “heavily concentrated on four top prospects”—Burgum, Rubio, Scott, and Vance.
The absence of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R), Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) as vetting prospects was conspicuously evident in multiple high-profile reports, all of which relied on sources familiar with Trump’s campaign. However, the process is fluid, an insider told the Associated Press.
“Anyone claiming to know who or when President Trump will choose his VP is lying, unless the person is named Donald J. Trump,” Trump campaign spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement to outlets on Wednesday.