Hillary Clinton drew just about a third of the audience she and her campaign organizers expected at the National Baptist Convention this week, but organizers downplayed the smaller crowd.
Clinton's camp and event staff expected the crowd size to be approximately 9,000 people, reports The Washington Free Beacon. However, when far fewer people showed up at the Kansas City [Missouri] Convention Center than had been expected Thursday afternoon, the room was partitioned off to hide the thousands of empty seats.
Brian Abel, a reporter from Kansas City's NBC affiliate tweeted photos after organizers shut off the lights in the parts of the room that were unoccupied:
Even though the arena had been partitioned off, there were still hundreds of empty seats left over, and after Clinton delivered her keynote speech, Abel reported there were maybe 3,000 people who stayed to hear her.
But event organizers told KCTV, Kansas City's CBS affiliate the crowd was small because Clinton was a last-minute addition to the convention's schedule, not because she's not liked.
"It has nothing to do with, 'Well, they don't like her or they didn't want to hear her,'" Patricia Carter told KCTV. "The schedule for the convention is made months and months in advance."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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