Rock Hill prepares for Donald Trump campaign visit

Rock Hill will be hosting its 14th presidential candidate of the 2016 campaign season on Friday, and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump may be the biggest draw yet.

Extra security will be on hand along with the Secret Service at the Winthrop Coliseum, when the New York real-estate mogul and reality TV star makes his latest stop ahead of the Feb. 20 South Carolina primary.

Trump has become known for his bombastic speeches on the campaign trail, ignoring what the candidate calls “political correctness” and making comments one would expect to get other candidates in trouble. It was while campaigning in South Carolina last month that Trump announced his proposal to block Muslims from entering the United States.

Trump’s crowds have been some of the largest and most raucous of the campaign season, and he will be attempting to fill the largest venue on the Winthrop campus, the school’s 6,100-seat basketball arena.

“We expect there to be a big crowd, so we want people to take their time parking and going through the mags (metal detectors),” said Winthrop Police Chief Frank Zebedis, who encouraged Trump supporters to arrive early, “and be patient when they leave.”

While Winthrop has hosted many other presidential candidates in recent months, Trump is one of the few candidates awarded Secret Service protection this early in the process. That adds an extra level of security precautions to the process.

Although police officials won’t say how many personnel will be deployed to the event, the Rock Hill Police Department will be providing additional personnel at the coliseum. Zebedis warns attendees not to bring weapons such as pocket knives or pepper-spray into the venue or they will be confiscated.

The challenges aren’t unfamiliar to local officers, who are handling their third Secret Service-protected event in as many months. Former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was on campus for the Democratic presidential forum in November, and Trump’s GOP rival Ben Carson spoke at the Winthrop Coliseum last month.

“Fortunately, we’ve had quite a few of these,” Zebedis said. “We don’t anticipate any problems, but if we do have any, we’re prepared.”

Trump’s appearance will be the first and perhaps only chance for local voters to hear from the man who has been leading the GOP’s presidential race for months. In South Carolina, Trump had a 9-point lead among GOP voters in the latest Winthrop Poll.

“He’s leading in three of the four states that will be the first to vote in the primaries; South Carolina, New Hampshire and Nevada,” said Winthrop American government professor John Holder. “He is a very strong candidate early on in this election.”

But in the first state to hold a vote – Iowa, where caucuses will be held Feb. 1 – Trump has fallen behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by 4 percentage points, according to a Real Clear Politics average. A loss in that early contest could dent Trump’s national lead, although Holder doesn’t see him dropping out any time soon.

“Unlike most candidates, he’s self-financed,” he said. “Usually if you don’t do well in Iowa and New Hampshire, the money dries up ... but Trump can do this as long as he wants.”

Lately, Trump has taken to questioning whether Cruz is even eligible to be president, since he was born to an American mother in Canada. He may deploy that argument while visiting Rock Hill.

“He’s so unpredictable, there’s really no way to tell what Trump could say,” Holder said.

This story was originally published January 7, 2016 at 6:57 PM with the headline "Rock Hill prepares for Donald Trump campaign visit."