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“He’s brought us all together,” Frazier said, adorned in Trump gear, gesturing to the hundreds of RVs, campers and tents spread out in the grassy lots around the fairgrounds, much like the scene at a music festival with top performers. “It’s like a family here.”

Frazier, a 65-year-old retiree who worked at a Goodyear tire factory in Ohio for nearly four decades, laughs at the idea of being compared to the Dead Heads of old who would travel the nation following the Grateful Dead. He’s closing in on his 50th Trump rally.

But Frazier allows there is one similarity: that sense of being around hundreds of like-minded people who aren’t judging you for who you are, even if just for a day or two.

“It’s like a family here,” he said.

While Trump has been out of the White House for just over a year, he continues to crisscross the nation, holding both festival-like rallies and exclusive fundraisers that hint he will run for president again in 2024. Before speaking to thousands in Conroe at his 8th MAGA rally since he left office, he is hitting high-dollar fundraisers in Houston and near Lake Conroe where his wealthiest supporters are paying as much as $100,000 per couple to be near him.

It’s no surprise Trump would pick Montgomery County for just his 2nd free rally in 2022.

The county is the only one in Texas with at least 100,000 voters in which Trump won 70 percent or more of the vote in 2020 over President Joe Biden. That makes it the reddest of red counties in a red state that Trump carried by 6 percentage points.

CROWD GATHERS: As gates open at Trump rally in Conroe, line of waiting cars stretches for a mile

For Conroe resident Lee Wilhite, the hours before Trump’s speech were about tailgating outside his RV like before a football game with dozens of fellow fans.

Wilhite, a first timer to a Trump rally, said there’s a laid back, blue-collar vibe to the gathering. He said coming to the rally with his wife felt like taking a stand.

“We’re trying to do our part to do something for our country,” Wilhite said.

He said he’s not sure if Trump is running again, but in the meantime wants the former president to see the movement he’s created.

The rally comes at a critical time in the Texas Republican Primary season, too. Trump is supporting Gov. Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. Trump has endorsed all three in the March 1 primary, but they all have serious GOP challengers.

MORE ON THAT: Trump wades deeper into Texas politics with 20 endorsements in GOP primaries

As he did in Arizona for local candidates, Trump gave Abbott, Paxton and Miller all a chance to speak the crowd to help them build momentum, with early voting just two weeks away.