Donald Trump is expected Thursday for a rare rally in the Bronx, a disadvantaged district of New York where he hopes to attract Hispanic and African-American voters who are showing some signs of weakness in their support for Joe Biden.
Often blocked in New York by his mandatory presence at his trial for hidden payments to an X-rated movie star, Donald Trump has recently increased his campaign outings in his hometown, going to a grocery store in Harlem or having his photo taken in a fire station.
Donald Trump has campaigned in other states traditionally won by Democrats in recent weeks, such as New Jersey and Minnesota.
But by going to the Bronx, where more than 55% of Hispanics and nearly 30% of African-Americans live, the Republican presidential candidate on November 5 wants to prove that he can attract crowds among these perceived minorities as an essential breeding ground for the Democratic camp in the race for the White House.
MAGA supporters (“ Make America Great Again “) formed a winding queue a kilometer and a half long in the vast Crotona park where the public meeting of Donald Trump, who was severely defeated in the last presidential election in this traditionally Democratic stronghold, will be held in the evening.
“He’s from New York, I’m not offended that he’s here,” said George Marrero, a 68-year-old Hispanic resident of the Bronx. “He’s got a little bit of support here and I think he’ll do a little bit better this time.”
For his first rally in New York since 2016, the Republican will likely focus on crime and the difficult economic conditions for the working classes, in a borough where about a third of residents live below the poverty line, the rate highest in New York.
83% for Biden in 2020
A Democratic stronghold, the Bronx voted for Joe Biden by more than 83% in 2020 (15.8% for Donald Trump). In 2008, Barack Obama flirted with 89% of the vote.
But a few signs give hope to the Republicans: in 2023, the conservative party won a municipal councilor seat from the Democrats, a rare victory.
Elected officials and left-wing associations have planned to protest against the arrival of Donald Trump and counter-demonstrations will be organized near the rally.
Donald Trump was criticized for recently claiming that his legal troubles and his indictments in four different cases made him sympathetic to African Americans mistreated by the justice system, in a country where the incarceration rate of black people and is much higher higher than their share in the population.
But polls showed he made progress among African Americans and Hispanics, particularly among young people and those who blame Joe Biden for the rise in illegal immigration at the Mexican border.
Donald Trump has made increasingly violent remarks about migrants, whom he accused of “poisoning” the “blood” of America, and promises mass expulsions, even if it means resorting to the army, he returns to the White House.
Joe Biden’s campaign team aired an ad before the rally focusing on racial controversies in New York in the 1970s and 1980s about the real estate mogul, accused of refusing to rent apartments to black families. He also called for the death penalty for the five black and Hispanic teenagers wrongly accused and convicted of the rape of a woman in Central Park, one of the most famous cases of miscarriages of justice in the United States, with the racism as a backdrop.
Donald Trump’s campaign team responded that his opponent was panicking “because black voters don’t believe what Mr. Biden is selling them.”
“Black voters, like all Americans, are worse off today than they were under President Trump and all the polls reflect this reality,” assured a spokesperson, Janiyah Thomas.