Hi John,

Joe and I just left the Trump rally in Des Moines, and it left me with two conclusions:

1. Trump's rally attendances are grossly overstated, and

2. The Trump base truly lives in an insulated information bubble.

There were early reports that people were camping out overnight and that the crowd outside the arena would be in the thousands, left to watch the rally on giant screens. But the reality is there were tickets still available after the doors opened, the line cleared quickly into the arena, and then it was fairly empty except for a few reporters and a number of vendors selling vulgar souvenirs and t-shirts.

Trump's base is shrinking, and that's what we've been hearing on the campaign trail here in Iowa. A lot of Republicans feel like we do, that we don't really have a home in the Party in the Era of Trump.

Even when Joe walked up and down the line of people waiting to go in to see Trump, many attendees were clear they hadn't decided who they were going to caucus for yet. Of course, we met plenty of people who were proud Trump supporters, and we made sure to have friendly conversations with them too. But it was painfully obvious many of them were only hearing the Trump propaganda being pushed by outlets like FOX News, Breitbart, and Info Wars. Almost every single supporter told us Trump had never lied to the American people, not even once. Many didn't even know who John Bolton is (one person said they were sure he was innocent though!).

The only way we can save this nation is to help get our fellow Americans out of this bubble, and the only way we can do that is to get rid of Trump.

Probably the greatest casualty of his Presidency has been the death of truth. If we don't stop him now it will be impossibly difficult to ever restore our government as we know it.

That's why we need you. We need you to help this campaign going. We are David facing Goliath, but we do it knowing fully that our principles and the values of our nation are worth the fight, and there is strength in our strategy.

We are almost at the end of our fundraising cycle, and we need to close out strong to be able to carry our Iowa momentum into New Hampshire. Nothing scares Trump like our campaign gaining legs. He tried to crush us here with an army of surrogates in Iowa and he could barely fill his arena with supporters. Let's show him that Americans are over his corruption.

Make your donation — no matter how large or small — so we can keep beating Trump and take our unprecedented momentum thru Iowa and into New Hampshire!

Thank you for being a part of this. You make everything we do possible.

—Charles

Charles Siler
Communications Director
Walsh for President