Confined to New York for much of the past six weeks due to his criminal trial in Manhattan, Former President Donald Trump campaigned Thursday in the South Bronxone of the largest Democratic strongholds in the country, in an attempt to court Hispanic and black voters.
While the crowd was not as diverse as the South Bronx population as a whole, it did include a large number of black and Hispanic voters. And Trump, in his speech, presented himself as a better president for them.
He did so by criticizing President Joe Biden for his immigration policy, an issue that the Republican has made fundamental in his campaign. And he insisted that “The greatest negative impact” of the influx of immigrants in New York is for the black and Hispanic populationwho “are losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing everything they can lose.”
Some in the crowd responded by chanting in favor of the wall on the border with Mexico, in reference to what was the flag of the campaign that brought Trump to the White House in 2016.
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Although the virtual Republican candidate’s campaign has held several events in his hometown, forced by the trial, the Bronx rally was his first major event open to the general public.
Trump said he can win New York, an overwhelmingly Democratic state that has not backed a Republican for president since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
” The strategy is to demonstrate to voters in the Bronx and New York that this is not the typical presidential electionthat Donald Trump is here to represent everyone and get our country back on track,” said Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, a potential Trump running mate who grew up in Brooklyn and spoke at the rally.
Although Trump established his residence in Florida in 2019, the former president insisted on remembering that he is originally from the city. “If one New Yorker can’t save this country,” he went on to say, “no one can.”
Bronx Democratic Party protests Trump’s presence
Hours before the rally began, a long line of supporters wearing red ‘Make America Great Again’ hats and other Trumpian paraphernalia snaked through the park.
He Bronx Democratic Party counterscheduled Trump’s presence with its own event in the park. Members of multiple unions were present, holding signs that read ‘The Bronx Says No to Trump’ in both English and Spanish.
“We are used to elected officials and opportunistic politicians of all kinds coming to our community and using our painful history,” said Democratic state Rep. Amanda Septimo, whose district includes the South Bronx.
” They talk about the Bronx and everything that’s wrong with it, but they never get to the part that talks about what they’re going to do for the Bronx. and we know that Trump will never get to that part in his speech,” Septimo added.
But some locals in Thursday’s crowd didn’t seem to agree. Margarita Rosario, a 69-year-old woman who has lived in the district for more than 60 years, said she saw Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on television the night before suggesting that the Bronx would not support Trump. That prompted her to show up, holding a Trump flag and a “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) sign.
“I got very upset with that. I said, ‘How dare you speak for the entire Bronx?'” Rosario said.
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Muhammad Ali, a 50-year-old man who lives in the Bronx and said he planned to vote for Trump in November, said he once thought the former president was racist, but his views have changed.
“We need a patriotic president right now and I find Donald Trump more patriotic than Joe Biden,” said Ali, an immigrant from Bangladesh and a New York transportation agency worker.
And at least one New Yorker in the crowd said he knew Trump from his days as a local billionaire real estate developer. Alfredo Rosado, 62, said he had been a Trump supporter since 1998when he worked for several months doing summer substitution as a doorman at Trump Tower.
Rosado recounted how Trump asked him his name and stopped to chat. “He is the same person you see,” he said of the former president.
Trump assures that he can win the Hispanic vote
The Trump campaign believes it can undermine support for Biden among black and Hispanic voters, particularly among younger men who may not follow politics closely but are frustrated by his economic situation and drawn to the tough-guy persona. of Trump.
Biden’s campaign on Thursday released two ads aimed at undermining Trump’s attempts to make gains among Black voters, highlighting his spread of the “birther” conspiracy against former President Barack Obama and his calls for the death penalty for five convicted men. unjustly for rape in 1989.
The Bronx was once the most Democratic district in New York. Barack Obama won 91.2% of the vote in 2012, the highest in the state. Biden won 83.5% of the district in 2020, when Trump won 16%.
The area Trump visited is overwhelmingly non-white, unlike most of his campaign event venues. About 65% of residents are Hispanic and 31% are black, according to U.S. Census data. About 35% live below the poverty line.
Concluding his speech, Trump said he woke up Thursday unsure of the reception he would get in the Bronx. “I said, ‘I wonder, is he hostile or friendly?'” he said. “It was more than friendly. It was a love fest.”
