Trump holds campaign rally in South Bronx
Former President Donald Trump is campaigning in one of the most Democratic counties in the nation Thursday, holding a rally in the South Bronx. He’s hoping to woo minority voters by appearing in one of the most diverse and impoverished neighborhoods in the city where he grew up.
Trump addressed supporters in Crotona Park, a public green space in a neighborhood that is among the city’s most diverse and its most impoverished, a change from the majority-white areas where he holds most of his rallies. While the crowd was not quite as diverse as the South Bronx as a whole, it included large numbers of Black and Hispanic voters; Spanish was heard throughout the crowd.
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With Trump confined to New York for much of the last six weeks because of his trial, the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign has planned a series of local stops across his hometown before and after court. He visited a bodega in Harlem, dropped by a construction site and held a photo op at a local firehouse.
“The strategy is to demonstrate to the voters of the Bronx and New York that this isn’t your typical presidential election, that Donald Trump is here to represent everybody 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.
The former president opened his rally with an ode to his hometown, talking about its humble beginnings as a small Dutch trading post before becoming a glamorous capital of culture that “inspired the entire world.” While Trump established residency in Florida in 2019, he reminisced on Thursday about his efforts to revitalize Central Park’s Wollman Rink and people he knew in the real estate business.
“If a New Yorker can’t save this country,” he went on to say, “no one can.”
Members of multiple unions were present, holding signs that said “The Bronx says no to Trump” in both English and Spanish.
Rep. Ritchie John Torres, a Democrat who represents New York’s 15th Congressional District – where the rally is being held – says the only place in the Bronx where Trump has any business being is Bronx Criminal Court. He also blasted the former president in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“The South Bronx has no greater enemy than Donald Trump, who is on a mission to dismantle the social safety net on which Bronx families depend for their survival,” Torres said. “Trump is and has always been a fraud. The South Bronx – the most Democratic area in the nation – will not buy the snake oil that he is selling.”
What are present/former NY politicians saying?
Ed Cox, chairman of the New York Republican Party, noted that the GOP, in an upset victory, picked up a city council seat from the borough last year for the first time in 40 years. He pointed to the current political climate, with some voters pessimistic about the economy and viewing Biden as weakened.
“As chairman of the party here in New York, I’m not going to write off New York. We’re going to go for it,” he said.
During his campaign, Zeldin appeared in the Bronx alongside the Rev. Rubén Díaz Sr., a former state senator and city council member who had urged Trump to hold a rally in the borough and held a pro-Trump event there Saturday.
Díaz, who remains a Democrat despite backing Trump, said he believes there are others in the borough who will also cross the aisle, pointing to concerns over an influx of migrants that has dominated headlines in New York over budget and safety concerns.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that campaigning in that part of the city makes sense for Trump.
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