SAVANNAH ― The Johnny Mercer Theatre’s 2,500 seats were full and the doors closed by the time Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump’s motorcade pulled up to the venue’s west entrance ahead of Tuesday’s campaign event.
On the building’s opposite side, thousands more members of the MAGA masses stood sweating in the heat, waiting in vain to enter.
From those frustrated Trump fans sprung a theory that the former president had been denied use of a larger facility, the Enmarket Arena. That venue, which like the Mercer Theatre is owned by the city of Savannah, seats up to 9,500 and hosted about 6,200 for an August campaign rally for Trump’s election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
The claim that Democratic-leaning Savannah officials, such as Mayor Van Johnson, had forced Trump to hold his event at the Mercer spread rapidly through word of mouth and social media posts. A local TV station asked Johnson about it during an interview late Tuesday, and his denial provided more traction.
By Wednesday afternoon, what started off as grumbling had become a conspiracy.
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
There’s no truth to it, said the general manager of both venues, who works for a private-sector facility management company, Oak View Group, and not the city. Under Oak View’s operating agreement with the city, the venue manager handles all aspects of bookings, from facility selection to fee setting.
Oak View’s Monty Jones said the Trump campaign chose the Mercer Theatre after touring both venues on Sept. 20.
“They came to look at the Mercer, and we took them to Enmarket to show them another option,” Jones said Thursday morning. “They chose the theater. They told us they wanted something that could be catered to something more like a town hall than a rally.”
Oak View declined a request to provide communications between its officials and the Trump campaign related to the venue selection, citing company policy. Oak View is not subject to the Georgia Open Records Act, and city officials said they received no written communications related to facility selection for the Trump event.
The Trump campaign did not respond to inquiries about the venue selection process. Trump has a history of making unsubstantiated claims about crowds at his campaign events, including accusations that Georgia State University blocked admittance to “thousands of people” at an Atlanta rally in early August.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Johnson voiced frustration over the controversy on Thursday morning.
“Savannah offers several venues that the Trump campaign could have used for their event,” he said. “The mere idea that the city or I would deny or restrict access to any facility for the former president is nonsense.”
Johnson’s role in the Georgia Democratic Party fueled the rumors. While he holds a nonpartisan post, he was one of Georgia’s Electoral College delegates in 2020 for Joe Biden and a delegate to the Democratic National Convention earlier this summer.
In addition, high-profile Democrats, including two-time gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, campaigned for Johnson during his successful bid for reelection in 2023, and he was a featured speaker during last month’s Harris campaign rally.
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