NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump will campaign in one of the nation’s most Democratic boroughs on Thursday, holding a rally in New York’s Bronx borough to court minority voters, days before he The jury begins to debate in the trial that follows him in Manhattan on accusations of paying to conceal damaging information.
Trump will address his supporters in Crotona Park, a public green space in a district that is among the most diverse and impoverished in the city, in contrast to the majority white areas where he holds most of his rallies. His campaign team said he is expected to draw a crowd of several thousand people.
With Trump confined to New York for the past six weeks, the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign team planned a series of local events in his hometown before and after the trial. He visited a warehouse in Harlem, passed by a construction site one morning and had his photo taken at a local firehouse.
The Bronx rally will be Trump’s first rally open to the general public as he insists he is making a play to win an overwhelmingly Democratic state that hasn’t supported a Republican for president since Ronald Reagan in 1984. In addition to creating a spectacle of attendees and protesters, the rally also allows Trump to highlight what he argues are advantages on economic and immigration issues that could take votes away from Democrats.
“The strategy is to show voters in the Bronx and New York that this is not a typical presidential election, that Donald Trump is here to represent everyone and get our country back on track,” said Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, Trump’s possible running mate, who grew up in Brooklyn and will join him at the rally.
