OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Republican presidential candidates have not won the state of New York for many years. Democrats have a stronghold on the state with supermajorities in the Assembly and other statewide elected offices. However, this won’t stop one of the Empire State’s most famous former residents.
Donald Trump has announced his plans to campaign for New York with rallies to be held at Madison Square Garden and in the Bronx. A portion of the Bronx is represented in Congress by far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D). “The last time the Bronx was the center of a Republican presidential campaign was in 1984 when Ronald Reagan won by a landslide,” Breitbart News reported.
During a visit to a lower Manhattan construction site on Thursday, Trump received a warm reception from workers and other New Yorkers. Later, he told a Fox News reporter that he intends to try and win the state.
“I think we have a good chance of winning here and we’re going to give it a big plan,” he said. “We’re going to the South Bronx to do a rally. We’re going to be doing a rally at Madison Square Garden, we believe.”
The rallies will focus on honoring police, firemen, and teachers, Breitbart reported. “We’ll be honoring the people that make New York work,” Trump said. “It’ll be very exciting, but we think we have a really good chance of winning.”
During his speech, Trump attacked President Joe Biden’s expensive economic policies, criticized open borders, and condemned the anti-Israel protests in some of America’s top universities.
“[Police] would like to be at the colleges” to secure those campuses “because what’s happening at the colleges is a disgrace,” Trump said, as he drew a contrast between the NYPD being stationed at the Manhattan courthouse instead of the college campuses. “This courthouse is locked down and there’s not a person within five blocks. They have more police here.”
“This is the worst-run country right now,” the former president added. “All you have to do is look at the millions of people coming in from prisons, from mental institutions — coming in at levels we’ve never seen before.”
“So I’m gonna go in now and sit in front of a case — election interference,” Trump said. “But I guess based on what I’m looking at, it’s driving up my poll numbers.”
Trump has upended Biden’s recent national polling gains by dominating him in swing states, according to a Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll released Wednesday. The poll indicates that Trump leads in six out of the seven swing states for the 2024 election, underscoring his continued dominance over Biden.
Trump has even earned some praise from detractors on the right, such as George W. Bush’s adviser, Karl Rove. “He’s done this several times before,” Rove told Fox News about Trump’s on-message tactics this week. “Whoever’s advising him on this ought to be given a gold star because it’s good advice.”
“It is better for him to grab moments like this, walking in and commenting on the news of the day,” Rove said, “rather than making it all about what he feels [about the criminal trial]. And he feels obviously strongly about this — about … his treatment in this case; we’ve heard that once or twice already,” he added. “We don’t need to hear it again.”
