NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump is set to rally Thursday evening in the Bronx, one of the bluest counties in the country, as he seeks to win over minority voters disenchanted by President Joe Biden.
The event in the rolling 130-acre Crotona Park will be situated in a neighborhood composed of predominantly Hispanic and black residents, a stark change from Trump’s typically majority-white rally sites.
“Heading for New York for the Big Rally in the South Bronx. It’s been 50 years since such a thing as this has taken place. We are going to Make New York Great Again!!!” Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, wrote on Truth Social ahead of the event.
Trump’s appearance also comes during a weeklong pause in his criminal trial, which has taken place for six weeks in a Manhattan courthouse less than one hour from the park.
Despite being a criminal defendant in the state, Trump, whose attendance at trial is required, has made nearly every court appearance a miniature campaign stop. He often bashes Biden and New York’s Democratic leaders before and after he enters the courtroom, and at times, he has ventured out to a bodega or fire station after his court days to engage with residents. Trump, once a New York resident himself, gained his fame as a real estate mogul in the state, and now he is sending signals that he is gunning to win it.
The state has not voted for a Republican president since Ronald Reagan four decades ago, a dynamic driven largely by Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens voters, who are overwhelmingly Democratic.
Trump lost in the Bronx in 2020 by nearly 70 points, but he lost by more in 2016, an indication that Trump’s appeal has strengthened in an area with a high concentration of racial minorities and poor and working-class voters.
Bolstering that trend for the GOP at the state level are recent gubernatorial races. Former Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin, whose campaign for governor focused aggressively on crime, came within single digits of defeating Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2022. In the Bronx, Zeldin noticeably narrowed the wide gap seen in the previous two elections won by former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Biden, for his part, attacked Trump ahead of the rally by releasing campaign ads on Thursday highlighting his opponent’s “racist record.” The president pointed to Trump’s suggestion decades ago that the “Central Park Five” deserved the death penalty. The five black teenagers, convicted in 1990 of rape, later had their convictions overturned.
Trump’s campaign responded in a statement that the ad was a “cheap attempt from the Biden campaign to gaslight Black voters.”
“The Biden campaign is panicking because they see that Black voters aren’t buying what Biden is selling, and President Trump is receiving a record high support in the polls from Black voters that we haven’t seen in decades,” a campaign spokesperson said.
Trump’s forthcoming appearance in what some have described as “enemy territory” has also activated local Democrats, who claim Trump is unwelcome in their turf.
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Assemblywoman Amanda Septimo, a Bronx Democrat, is promoting a counter-rally across the street from Trump’s, while Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), who also represents the Bronx, said in an op-ed this week that Trump will “desecrate” Crotona Park.
“Is Trump so arrogant as to believe that he is the one Republican who can compete in the bluest Congressional District?” Torres said. “In answering that question, one must be reminded of who Trump is: a malignant narcissist with boundless delusions of grandeur.”