TRUMP TAKES THE BRONX. It would be an understatement to say that official New York — that is, Democratic officials in New York — was hostile to former President Donald Trump holding a campaign rally in the Bronx. They hated it. They really hated it.
When Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) was asked on CNN about Trump’s effort to appeal to Hispanic and black voters, two critical parts of the Democratic coalition, she replied: “I’ll tell you what won’t make a difference at all … and that’s for Donald Trump to be a ringleader and invite all his clowns to a place like the Bronx.” Hochul called the Trump event a “made-up, fake rally” in which Trump was “pretending there’s support here.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who represents a district near Crotona Park, where Trump held the rally Thursday evening, said, “He’s doing it in the South Bronx, not to make a point, but because he’s got court, and the man practically has the legal version of an ankle bracelet around him, and he can’t leave the five boroughs because he always has to be in court — and so it is truly an embarrassment to him.”
So the message of the Democratic establishment, by far the most dominant political force in New York, was: “We hate you. Stay out.” But the message of the thousands of New Yorkers who showed up for Trump’s rally was: “We love you. Come back.”
How many thousands? That’s always a question at Trump rallies. Trump says they are huge, and his detractors say he’s making it up. In fact, Trump rallies are almost always far bigger than anyone else’s, sometimes by multiples. In the Bronx, the New York Post reported, “The event was permitted to host up to 3,500 people, but thousands more gathered outside security checkpoints in the hope of catching a glimpse of the 45th president or a sample of his remarks.”
So what does that mean? Start with a few facts about the Bronx. With a population of 1.38 million, it is the next-smallest of New York City’s five boroughs, but it is the most nonwhite: 56% Hispanic, 28% black, 4% Asian, and 8% white. Nationwide, Trump is trying to increase his appeal to those minority voters, so despite all the talk about what an unlikely place it was for a rally, in fact, the Bronx was not a bad place to go.
No, Trump is not going to win New York. But the fact is Trump did better in New York City in 2020 than he did in 2016, and the reason was … more votes in the Bronx. “President Trump received tens of thousands more votes in New York City in the 2020 presidential election than in 2016, and some of his largest gains came from an unlikely area: the South Bronx,” the Wall Street Journal reported in November 2020.
In 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defeated Trump in the Bronx by an 88.5%-to-9.5% margin. In 2020, Joe Biden defeated Trump in the Bronx by an 83.3%-to-15.9% margin. “The results reflect Mr. Trump’s gains in majority-Latino communities, which Republicans said they hoped to build on in coming elections,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Now, in the 2024 race, there has been lots of polling suggesting that Trump’s support among Hispanic voters nationwide is rising again. “President Biden continues to lose crucial support among Latino voters, with an increasing number of those voters saying they are more likely to vote for former President Donald J. Trump, according to a new poll by the New York Times and Siena College,” the New York Times reported on March 2. “The poll, and others like it, make clear that Mr. Trump has continued to make remarkable inroads with Hispanic voters.”
Trump’s progress has bewildered some Democrats. “Few observers would have predicted this kind of support for a former president who, when he first declared his candidacy for the White House nearly a decade ago, claimed that many Mexican immigrants were rapists and criminals,” the New York Times continued. “During the 2020 election, many Democrats were stunned when Mr. Trump saw his support from immigrant-heavy precincts improve dramatically.”
The reason for Trump’s continued improvement among Latino voters in polls pitting him against Biden is not terribly hard to figure out: 1) Latino voters go to the grocery store just like everybody else, and 2) Latino voters, again like everybody else, can see that Biden is not in the physical or mental shape to serve as president until age 86. These are not “Hispanic community” problems. They are problems facing American voters.
So, given the context, Trump’s foray into the Bronx received a lot of attention. And he made the most of it. A lot of his speech was a love letter to New York City, where he was born in Queens in 1946. He also focused on economic matters. He focused on the border — yes, immigrants who have come to the United States legally don’t like to see millions pouring over the border illegally. He reminisced. He gave life lessons. And — this is unusual recently — he spent almost no time musing on his current trial or other indictments.
And Trump did something that in a political campaign is more important than anything else: He showed up. Past Republican presidential candidates have sometimes made the mistake of wanting more minority votes without campaigning in places where large numbers of minority voters live. If you want to win or just do better among minorities, you have to go to places where they live and deliver the same message you deliver everywhere else — no pandering. If they like you, they’ll vote for you, and if they don’t vote for you, they’ll still think better of you for coming. Maybe they’ll vote for you or your party the next time. “Biden didn’t come to the Bronx,” a 19-year-old resident told Politico. “Trump is here.”
Finally, Trump showed extraordinary physical vigor — he spoke for one hour and 33 minutes with a high level of energy. Yes, his speech at times wandered all over the place, which Trump’s speeches always do and which his supporters find entertaining. But the contrast between Trump’s speech on Thursday and Biden’s appearances at the White House on the same day, when he appeared feeble and had to read prepared texts to answer three questions during a brief press conference with the president of Kenya, was remarkable.
Biden has the advantage of incumbency, and Trump remains an incredibly divisive figure. The race is close, with no way to predict what will happen. But for a lot of reasons, Trump’s appearance in the Bronx has to be worrisome for the Biden team. Perhaps that is why so many Democratic politicians were so angry that Donald Trump, the essential New Yorker, had the audacity to campaign in New York.