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It’s been 40 years since a Republican nominee has carried New York state in a presidential election.
You have to go back to President Ronald Reagan, who won the state as part of his landslide re-election victory in 1984.
But it appears former President Trump is hoping to end the GOP’s losing streak.
“We’re coming to the Bronx,” the former president touted on social media on the eve of his Wednesday campaign event in the New York City borough, which is one of the bluest parts of a blue state.
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Former President Trump leaves Trump Tower on his way to Manhattan Criminal Court, April 15, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
The former president’s campaign says they expect a crowd of a couple of thousand supporters on hand when Trump speaks at Crotona Park, a public park in New York City’s most diverse and economically challenged borough.
The Bronx population is overwhelmingly Hispanic and Black, and roughly a third of its residents live below the poverty line, according to Census data. And the Bronx is one of the most Democratic-dominated counties in the country.
So why is Trump, who often holds rallies and other campaign events in politically safer locales, heading to what seems to be enemy territory?
“President Trump is unafraid to bring his message to every borough of New York, to every corner of this great country, because he believes his message is a winning one,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News.
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Trump won less than 10% of the vote in the Bronx in his 2016 presidential election victory. His support in the Bronx edged up to 16% in his 2020 re-election defeat, with Biden winning 83.5% of the vote.
But polls suggest Trump is making gains with Black and Hispanic voters.
Trump’s campaign thinks the former president can make a dent in Biden’s support among Black and Hispanic voters, especially younger males who may be frustrated with economic conditions – especially inflation – and who are attracted to Trump’s bravado.
“The strategy is to demonstrate to the voters of the Bronx and New York that this isn’t your typical presidential election, that Donald Trump is here to represent everybody and get our country back on track,” Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., told Fox News.
Donalds, a potential Trump running mate who grew up in New York City, will join the former president at the Bronx gathering.
Rep. Byron Donalds speaks during a press conference outside the former president’s criminal trial, on May 14, 2024, in New York City. (Fox News)
New York City Republicans note that the GOP won a city council seat in the Bronx last year for the first time in four decades.
“There is improvement. And you have to question why there wouldn’t be more,” New York City Councilman Joe Borelli said in an interview on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends First.”
“Who has been in charge of the Bronx for the better part of a generation? It’s been Democrats at every level at local, state and federal government,” Borelli emphasized. “So you shouldn’t be surprised when people come out tonight in great numbers to hear someone who’s not, you know, singing from the same choir book. Donald Trump is going to go out there and really confront the public with why they’re being faced with so many economic problems from Joe Biden.”
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Democrats plan a counterprotest on Thursday evening, with the Bronx Democratic Party holding their own event in the same park.
“Trump isn’t welcome in the Bronx,” they argued in a social media posting.
And the political arm of the New York Immigration Coalition, pointing to the former president’s record and rhetoric on immigration, charged that “there is no place for Donald Trump’s hatred and racism in a neighborhood as diverse, vibrant and rich with immigrant history as the South Bronx.”
Thursday’s campaign event comes during a brief pause in Trump’s criminal trial. Closing arguments are expected when court resumes on Tuesday, following a break for the Memorial Day federal holiday.
Former President Trump at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 21, 2024, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Trump is charged with falsifying business records in relation to payments during the 2016 election that he made to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about his alleged affair with the adult film actress. Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, $130,000 in return for her silence about allegations of an affair with Trump in 2006.
Both Cohen and Daniels testified for the prosecution and were grilled by Trump’s attorneys during cross-examination in a case that’s grabbed tons of attention on the cable news networks, online and on social media.
Trump, who is making history as the first current or former president to stand trial in a criminal case, has repeatedly denied falsifying business records as well as the alleged sexual encounter with Daniels, and has repeatedly claimed, without providing evidence, that the case is a “SHAM TRIAL instigated and prosecuted directly from the inner halls of the White House and DOJ.”
With Trump mostly confined to New York City for the past month and a half since the start of the trial, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has made a series of campaign stops in the city he long called home before changing his residence to Florida.
Among his stops have been a visit to a bodega in Harlem, a construction site, and a local firehouse.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.
