Was a large crowd shown in a viral video on X.com related to the Kamala Harris campaign? No, that's not true: The footage showed a crowd at a concert for Hurricane Helene relief. Contrary to the implication made in a social media post, the concert and the crowd had nothing to do with the 2024 U.S. presidential race.
The claim appeared in a post and video (archived here) on X on October 28, 2024. Text in the post said:
Holy shit! Look at this fucking crowd in Charlotte for Country for Carolina. Kamala Harris is going to win North Carolina and become the first woman president in United States' history. 🙌🙏💪👏👊🌊🇺🇸
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Thu Oct 3114:03:33 2024 UTC)
The post implied that the massive crowd seen in the 29-second clip was somehow related to the Kamala Harris campaign. Although its wording didn't include the word "rally," some people in the comment section of the post interpreted it as a reference to a rally in support of the Democratic nominee. Crowd size discussions (archived here) at various rallies have been ongoing throughout the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign.
A reverse image search on Google (archived here) of a screenshot from the video led to an account on TikTok (archived here) whose name appeared in a white watermark in the video as seen on X. That account on TikTok uploaded the footage on October 27, 2024, and the original caption pointed to an event that had nothing to do with the 2024 election:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Oct 31 14:10:55 2024 UTC)
According to the event's website (archived here), the name of the concert was Concert for Carolina, and it took place in Charlotte, North Carolina, on October 26, 2024, one day before the video's publication on TikTok. The show's description read:
ALL PROCEEDS TO SUPPORT HURRICANE HELENERELIEF EFFORTS IN THE CAROLINA REGION.
News coverage of the concert by the Charlotte Observer (archived here), Axios (archived here), Rolling Stone (archived here) and Fox News (archived here) said nothing about political campaigning for Harris or anyone else throughout the show.
The most recent, as of this writing, rally in support of the Democratic nominee in Charlotte took place earlier, on October 25, 2024, according to her campaign website (archived here), and the venue was different.
The same claim was reviewed by AFP.
Other Lead Stories fact checks concerning the claims about the 2024 U.S. presidential election can be found here.
