Crowds Ain't Everything

Beware the crowdsmanship: Does the size of political rallies really mean much? – Something Like the Truth:

...I have bad news for Sanders, Trump, their supporters and some in the news media fixated on the numbers at candidates’ rallies: The size of rallies has long been a flawed measure of a campaign’s vitality. Journalists often survey an arena brimming with enthusiastic supporters and mistakenly use a head count to gauge the campaign’s prospects. Candidates and their staffs are eager to bolster that faulty notion, sometimes feeding reporters exaggerated crowd estimates (there’s no evidence Sanders’ campaign has done that)...