Trump Rally in St. Cloud Has Big Price Tag

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- The rally for Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, and his Vice Presidential running mate JD Vance, held in St. Cloud on Saturday, July 27th was not cheap.

St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis says the total cost the city invoiced to the Trump campaign is $208,935.17.  He says it took several days to come up with the total because several departments were involved including police, fire, public works, and IT.  There was also a change order for the construction on University Drive.

Additionally, an official at St. Cloud State University tells WJON News that the rental fee they charged the Trump campaign to use the Herb  Brooks National Hockey Center was another $35,000.

A huge crowd of supporters started lining up to see the former president the Friday before the rally.  The crowd continued to grow throughout the day on Saturday.

It was likely the largest crowd ever inside that facility.  SCSU Communications spokesman Zach Dwyer says the largest crowd they'd hosted for hockey before the 2013-2014 expansion was 7,051, which happened seven times.  After the expansion, the largest crowd was 6,051 in January 2023.

Dwyer says he doesn't have a way to track non-hockey events to know with certainty that it was the biggest event, but with chairs and standing room only on the floor of the arena it is likely the crowd inside the facility to see Trump's speech was near 9,000 people.

Several thousand more supporters watched the speech live on big-screen TV's outside the arena.

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St. Cloud Assistant Police Chief Brett Mushatt says there were no significant issues before or during the rally. He says most issues were medical-related outside the venue due to the extreme heat with high temperatures of around 90 degrees.

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