In an effort to gain support from Black and Hispanic voters before the November election, former president Donald Trump will be holding a rally in the Bronx on Thursday.
The event takes place just days before final arguments in the criminal hush money trial of Trump in New York, which is one of the most Democratic counties in the nation. Despite being charged with 34 felonies, Trump has entered a not guilty plea.
Despite spending much of the last six weeks in the Big Apple due to his trial, former president Trump will make his return to the state for his first big campaign rally since his 2016 presidential campaign at Thursday’s event in South Bronx’s Crotona Park. Since his trial started in mid-April, Trump has made several visits to Manhattan, including a fire station, a construction site, and a bodega—the site of a fatal stabbing in 2022.
According to an official from Trump’s campaign who spoke with AWN, the choice to host the rally in the Bronx was influenced by a number of factors, such as the former president’s extensive background in New York and his endeavors to get support from minority voters. The person added that Trump’s wish to “challenge the status quo” in a state that has traditionally voted for Democrats was a factor, as was the area’s closeness to the president’s criminal trial.
Even though no Republican presidential candidate has won New York since1984, Trump is adamant that he can win the state this November. The Bronx is a heavily Democratic district that Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020 by a margin of approximately 68 points. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton won the county by 79 points four years ago, so that margin is decreasing. According to the US Census Bureau, the majority of residents in the South Bronx, where Trump’s rally is being held, are Black (31%). Hispanics make up 64% of the residents.
As a result of Thursday’s modifications to the chamber’s vote schedule, some New York House Republicans stated they would not be able to attend Trump’s rally.
Everything was set to go according to plan; we were all going to be in New York to welcome him and witness this momentous occasion. “However, as a result of a change in the House schedule, along with seven other lawmakers, we will be voting to prohibit illegal immigrants from voting and to safeguard the right to financial privacy of Americans,” said House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, who is being considered as a possible running mate for Trump.
To draw attention to what the Biden campaign referred to as “Trump’s long record of failures and broken promises” among Black Americans, two new advertisements were released by the campaign on Thursday. In the 1970s, Trump faced housing discrimination charges and a lawsuit. He later promoted the racist conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the US. In the 1980s, he pushed for the death penalty for five minority teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of rape and beating a woman in Central Park. In 2017, he “stood with violent White supremacists” in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The ads were criticized by the Trump team for trying to “gaslight Black voters.”
The 1994 Crime Bill, which Joe Biden helped write, had a disproportionate impact on Black communities due to its severe sentencing rules and high incarceration rates; we must not forget this. “We cannot overlook that Biden’s policies are driving Black families deeper into poverty and making them less safe,” stated Janiyah Thomas, the campaign’s Black media director.
Democratic Bronx representatives Ritchie Torres and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have spoken out strongly against the planned appearance by the former president.
In an interview with NY1, Ocasio-Cortez referred to it as a “attempt to, I think, trick some of our folks here,” while Torres characterized Trump in the Bronx as “radioactive” according to The New York Times.
Even while the former president has made an issue out of inciting fears of illegal immigrants, Trump is reaching out to minority votes. When discussing illegal immigration, he frequently makes inaccurate or misleading statements and uses demeaning rhetoric.
