NEW YORK — Leaving the subway station closest to former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in the Bronx on Thursday evening, the only signs of something unusual were the NYPD officers with bomb-sniffing dogs at the turnstiles and helicopters buzzing overhead. As New Yorkers filed out of the station, there was not a single Trump-related item in sight.
But by the time he arrived at Crotona Park, a vast green space in an impoverished neighborhood, thousands were covered in red “Make America Great Again” hats and all manner of clothing bearing Trump’s logo, including “Team Trump” cowboy hats. And speaking to a mostly nonwhite audience, Trump signaled he was willing to stray from orthodox Republican rhetoric to find common ground.
Across the street, vendors were selling shirts with slogans like “Women Support Trump,” “Latinos Support Trump” and “God, Guns and Trump,” as well as shirts insulting prominent Democrats.
Outside the park, a small group of protesters carrying Palestinian and Puerto Rican flags chanted “The whole Bronx is saying ‘Fuck Trump!'” but their signs also read “Fuck Biden!”
They refused to answer questions about who, if anyone, they were supporting.
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The long line to get into the rally area, which was cordoned off by police barricades, was packed with enthusiastic Trump supporters who cheered and gaped when they spotted Mr. Trump’s motorcade, and when he took the stage, the crowd stood on their tiptoes, arms raised and cell phone cameras held aloft, hoping to get a glimpse of him.
“Hello to all the strong, hard-working American patriots here in the Bronx,” Trump said, after boasting about the long lines waiting to get in. “Who would think that?”
Democrats’ pitch to New York vote
Trump’s remarks were largely focused on New York City itself, and included lengthy reminiscences about renovations to a local skating rink and golf course.
Trump frequently portrays New York as plagued by crime due to its progressive governance, but he has combined those claims with a kind of conciliatory offer to the city he frequently denounces.
He promised that if he retakes the White House, “I’m going to call the mayor and the governor and say, ‘I want to help.'”
New York City’s murder rate fell 11.9 percent last year, to 386 murders, about one-seventh of the peak in 1990, and the astronomical cost of living means demand for housing in the city is strong.
But that’s not apparent from Trump’s comments, as he has repeatedly pointed to the city as suffering an unprecedented wave of crime and general blight.
“Sadly, this city is in decline,” he declared. “I’ve never seen it like this. Where I used to play with my children, there are now filthy encampments inhabited by drug addicts and homeless people, and madmen are pushing innocent passersby onto the train tracks and killing them.”
To address that issue, he promised to deliver results that Democrats could have easily delivered.
“We’re going to build back New York City,” Trump said. “We’re going to bring safety back to our streets, we’re going to bring success back to our schools, we’re going to bring prosperity back to every neighborhood, every borough, of the greatest city in the nation.”
“We’re going to make New York bigger, better and more beautiful than ever before, including right here in the Bronx, and it’s going to be run and funded directly from our great and beautiful White House, starting on January 20th,” he added.
Trump then lamented that “our subways are filthy and dangerous” and vowed to “make them beautiful again,” adding that he would “do whatever it takes to fix our roads and bridges.”
The Biden administration, which has enacted a $1.2 billion infrastructure bill that includes funding for the subway system, criticized Mr. X, saying Biden is already implementing Trump’s proposals.
But Trump’s remarks were enthusiastically cheered by the audience, many of whom said Biden has accomplished nothing in his time in office.
There was little discussion of the more typically Republican positions: no mention of abortion, only one brief mention of tax cuts, and no discussion of whether Trump would be open to cutting Social Security or Medicare.
An unlikely location for a Republican rally
The Bronx, which won just 14% of the vote in 2020, is unlikely to seem like a welcoming place for Trump. The borough is 28% black and 56% Latino, two groups that have historically voted Democrats by large margins.
New York is also not a battleground state: In the last election, New York supported President Joe Biden 61% to 38% over President Trump.
But Trump has been trying to squeeze campaigning in between his hush-money criminal trial in neighboring Manhattan, and campaigning in his former hometown, including a stop at a Harlem bar last month to attack Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for crimes.
There are signs that Trump’s approval rating is improving. Trump’s approval rating in 2020 is better than in 2016, when he won just 10% of the vote in the Bronx. This mirrors national trends that have seen Trump’s popularity grow among people of color, particularly Hispanics, and especially Hispanic men. Polls this year have shown Trump to be more popular with Hispanics and younger people than in the last election, but there are also signs that his approval rating is slipping.
The crowd seemed to reflect these demographic changes: It was younger, more male, and more white and less black than in the Bronx, but there was also a significant Hispanic presence.
Pedro and Gina Dominguez, Dominican immigrants living in New Jersey, came to show their support for Trump, and like all the other attendees interviewed, their reasoning for supporting him was based more on character than policy.
“America needs a strong person to lead the country and I believe Trump is that person,” Pedro Dominguez said. Gina Dominguez added that many of her friends who criticized her for supporting Trump in 2020 are now inclined to vote for him because of inflation.
How does this fit into Trump’s election strategy?
Throughout the speech, Trump mixed his usual talking points with appeals to the local market: When railing against immigrants, for example, he argued that black and Hispanic people are the ones most hurt by immigration.
He also sharply criticized Trump for falsely claiming he opposed the invasion of Iraq before it began.
And he predicted he would win the support of New Yorkers.
“Who says we can’t win New York?” Trump asked rhetorically. “We’re going to win New York City. And when we win New York, we’re going to win them all.”
But while Trump’s advisers may not believe he can secure the support of New York or its black and Latino voters, the image of Trump campaigning in the state could still help him win over swing voters.
Sometimes referred to by critics as “ricochet pandering,” reaching out to inner-city voters of color could soften Trump’s image as racially divisive and benefit him among suburban white moderates. According to National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru, a classic example of this tactic is when “Republicans put lots of black people onstage at their conventions, not in the hope that more black voters will join the GOP as a result, but in the hope that some white voters will see the GOP trying and vote for them.”
2024 Election:Trump and Biden have been sparring over whether Trump’s 30-second silence was intentional or a “glitch.”
Local elected officials react negatively
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-New York), who represents the same district where Trump held his rally — one of the poorest in the country — may at first glance seem like Trump’s polar opposite: young, gay, Afro-Latino and a self-described progressive.
Torres held a press conference on Thursday morning, where she denounced Trump as a “con man.”
“The South Bronx has never had a bigger enemy than Donald Trump, who is on a mission to dismantle the social security benefits that Bronx families rely on to survive,” Torres said in a statement. “The South Bronx is the most Democratic part of the country and will not buy the quack medicine Trump is selling.”
A simultaneous counter-rally was held in the same park, organized by Bronx Democratic state Assemblywoman Amanda Septimo, civil rights activist Kirsten John Foy, and labor unions.
“We’re trying to get these idiots to come to their senses,” said Rick Caballero, a Bronx resident and counter-protester. “Donald Trump is only for white people.”
Limited geographic support
The only elected official to share the stage with Trump was Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donald, who grew up in Brooklyn.
But Ruben Diaz Sr., a conservative Democrat who represents the Bronx on the City Council and in the state Senate, took the stage after Trump’s speech to praise him. Diaz has caused controversy in New York for his homophobic remarks and for welcoming Sen. Ted Cruz to the Bronx in 2016.
“As a Puerto Rican, as a Hispanic, I want to apologize for the actions of Judge Juan Marchan,” Diaz told Trump. Marchan is the judge in Trump’s case over allegedly falsifying business records to hide payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. (During his speech, Trump accused Marchan of being “corrupt” and having a “conflict of interest,” but did not specify what he considered “corrupt,” and the New York State Commission on Judicial Ethics found that Marchan had no conflict of interest.)
Diaz ended his speech with a statement of support, which Trump said he had not expected.
“This Democrat, this black Puerto Rican with the curly hair and broken English, please accept my endorsement for president,” Diaz declared.
“He can’t even talk and he has millions of dollars and we have no money,” middle-aged attendee Joe Walsh joked in response to Diaz.
But Walsh later added, “He’s probably the smartest Democrat because he supports Trump.”
