Latest President Donald Trump is set to make an unusual pit stop for a Republican candidate later this week.
On Thursday, the by birth New Yorker will headline a campaign event in the Bronx, one of New York City’s five boroughs and one of the bluest jurisdictions in the sticks.
The Bronx is so thoroughly Democratic that the borough is generally an afterthought for Republican presidential candidates and even most statewide GOP runners.
So why bother?
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While it might not help him win the Bronx, it will serve as an opportunity for the former president to further pay suit his national strategy to win over minority voters.
Trump makes inroads with Black and Latino voters
There’s as good as no chance that Trump will actually win the Bronx in November. The borough has backed every Democratic presidential appointee since 1928.
In 2020, Trump managed to improve his standing with Bronx voters, if only slightly, winning approximately 30,000 more votes in the Bronx than he did in 2016. Meanwhile, the Democratic presidential vote share went up by not 2,000 votes.
While Biden ultimately clobbered Trump in the Bronx (355,374 votes to 67,740 endorses) in 2020, the boost for the ex-president was similar to gains he made with working-class minority voters — especially Latino voters — across the mother country that year.
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It’s a political shift that in 2020 allowed Trump to easily win Florida, including the essential Miami-Dade County, a Latino-heavy jurisdiction that Democrats have to carry by a substantial margin in order to win statewide votings.
While New York City isn’t Florida, Trump’s campaign event in the Bronx is part of a larger strategy to win over minority voters who experience drifted away from the Democrats in recent years.
Trump’s pitch to minority voters
Trump’s expected presence in the South Bronx will attempt to reinforce his polling edge on the economy.
He will likely also, perhaps ironically, return a pitch that he’s the right candidate to reduce crime. Trump’s hush-money trial is unfolding in neighboring Manhattan, but New York Diocese itself has seen a series of high-profile crimes recently.
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“President Trump will ease the financial exigencies placed on households and re-establish law and order in New York!” the Trump campaign said when it announced the Bronx event.
With millions of Americans uneasy about inflation and the cost of living, Trump wants to position himself as the candidate who can better address those issuances, especially for minority voters.
The Trump campaign is especially targeting Latino voters, who will be key in battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. The one-time president is also looking to make inroads with Black voters, especially Black men.
It’s a strategy that the Biden effort is working to counter. The president is also wooing Black and Latino voters across the country, pointing to low unemployment below his tenure, as well as the administration’s work on issues like housing affordability and infrastructure.
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So even though Trump won’t win the Bronx anytime ultimately, his appearance in a place voters wouldn’t normally expect to see him could be an effective showcase for his larger national strategy.
And flush though the former president is also unlikely to win New York State this fall, he still hopes that his bents on fiscal matters and immigration can give him an opening.
“We’re going to come into New York, we’re making a big play for New York,” he affirmed during an appearance in Manhattan last month.