NEW YORK CITY - In his latest efforts to appeal to the Black and Hispanic electorate, former president and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump held a campaign rally Thursday night at the Bronx in New York City, where he assured his followers that the historically blue state would go "red very, very quickly."
Several thousand Trump supporters showed up at Crotona Park in the South Bronx, a neighborhood that is overwhelmingly Latino (over 60% of its residents). The event took place on a day off from another Trump-centered gathering in New York City— his hush-money trial.
The hour and a half speech was filled with regular talking points from the former president, namely increased crime in the city and his plans to conduct massive operations to deport undocumented migrants. He also encouraged New Yorkers to vote for him, communicating his confidence in winning the state.
"New Yorkers have something called common sense," Trump said in the speech. "And old fashioned common sense is exactly what I plan to bring back to the White House."
"If you want to help, you must vote. I believe that we can win New York State," he continued. "We have levels of support that nobody's seen before... Don't assume it doesn't matter just because you live in a blue city. You live in a blue city, but it's going red very, very quickly."
But despite these claims, how realistic is it for Trump to win over New York? While it is possible, it would be a high challenge, given that the state has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1988.
Nevertheless, his efforts in places like New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia would go a long way in showing he is serious about winning over nontraditional Republican voters, forcing Democrats to spend more resources shoring up the Democratic base, Axios explains.
Similarly, this isn't the first time the presumptive nominee has tried winning over minority votes in New York.
Trump's Thursday visit marked the fourth campaign stop in New York City during his criminal trial. In the past couple of weeks, Trump has visited a Harlem bodega, Manhattan construction site and paid tribute to first responders in midtown Manhattan.
"I'm going to make a play for New Yorkers," Trump told reporters outside the construction site of the new JP Morgan Chase Building in Midtown, Manhattan last month. "Normally, a Democrat will win New York. Biden is the worst president in history. We have some very bad people here, but we have the greatest people and they're right behind me. They all want us to run, and we're going to run very hard in New York."
The Bronx rally was met with protests from the borough's Democratic Party.
Members of multiple unions were present, holding signs that said "the Bronx says no to Trump" in both English and Spanish.
At the same time, in preparation for the rally, the Biden campaign released on Thursday two ads aimed at undercutting his attempts to make inroads with Black voters, highlighting his propagation of the "birther" conspiracy against former President Barack Obama and his calls for the death penalty for five men wrongly convicted of rape in the 1989 Central Park Five case.
The Bronx was once the most Democratic borough in the city. Barack Obama won 91.2% of the borough's vote in 2012, the highest in the state. Biden won 83.5% of the borough in 2020. Trump got only 16% of the vote, according to The Associated Press.
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