Donald Trump heads to the Bronx on Thursday for a rally that makes him the first Republican presidential candidate to visit the district for a campaign event in more than 40 years.
The former president pays a visit as he seeks to draw black and Hispanic voters away from President Joe Biden.
Trump will speak to supporters in Crotona Park around 6 pm ET. His campaign, which often touts crowd size, expects several thousand people to attend.
In announcing the event, the Trump campaign said the visit will highlight Biden’s “disastrous” record on the economy and the rise in violent crime.
The former president and former New Yorker insists he could win the state in November. But those chances are extremely slim for the presumptive Republican nominee and even greater in the Bronx.
Donald Trump will hold a campaign event in the Bronx on Thursday. He is the first Republican presidential candidate to campaign in the township since Reagan.
Biden beat Trump in the Empire State by double digits in 2020 with more than 60 percent of the vote to Trump’s less than 38 percent.
Trump won less than 10 percent of the Bronx in 2016. In 2020, he won just 16 percent of the district against Biden.
No Republican presidential candidate has won a New York state presidential election since President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Trump has been in New York for his criminal trial as he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records for paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Outside the courthouse, he made several stops throughout the city, including a visit to a fire station, a construction site and a warehouse.
Before the demonstration in the Bronx, Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres, who represents the districts, harshly criticized the former president who was visiting his neighborhood.
“It’s obvious to all of us that their priority is not the people of the Bronx,” Torres said on MSNBC. “His priority is self-forgiveness and self-preservation.”
“His presidency was a catastrophe for the Bronx, his mismanagement of COVID left a death toll of over 7,000 in the Bronx, greater than the combined death count of Pearl Harbor and 9/11.”
Torres said that instead of holding a demonstration he should “apologize for the harm he has caused.”
The congressman said he is confident that the people of the Bronx will not “buy the snake oil that he is selling.”
Thursday morning the region was hit by thunderstorms. Progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reposted video of the torrential downpour that drenched the Trump rally site with the caption, “God is good.”
While conditions are expected to improve later, the park could be wet and muddy for attendees.
Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign released a 30-second ad Thursday warning that Trump represents a “terrible threat to Black America.”
The ad highlights Trump’s call for the execution of the Central Park Five. The five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were wrongfully convicted of the brutal assault of a white woman in New York’s Central Park in 1989. Their convictions were overturned in 2002.
It began streaming digitally ahead of Trump’s visit to the Bronx and New York ZIP codes. The campaign is also airing the ad in battleground states.
One of the Central Park Five is now a New York City Councilman. He criticized Trump on Thursday.
‘During that dark period, Donald Trump took out full-page ads in New York City newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty. He pointed the finger at us and called for our execution without the slightest proof,” Yusef Salaam stated in a statement.
Biden’s campaign released a 30-second political ad Thursday calling Trump a terrible threat to Black America. The ad highlighted Trump calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five. It began airing in New York before Trump’s visit, as well as in battleground states.
“Unfortunately, this personal experience is not just a chapter in my life, but a clear illustration of the type of leader Donald Trump is: a man who has consistently disrespected and dehumanized our community,” Salaam added while urging communities black and latin women not to sit down. elections out.
In the Bronx, more than 28 percent of the population identified as Black and more than 56 percent identified as Hispanic in 2022.
Reagan is the latest Republican presidential candidate to hold a campaign event in the South Bronx. He visited the township when he was running against President Jimmy Carter in the summer of 1980.
He delivered remarks in front of a vacant lot on Charlotte Street, the same place Carter had visited in 1977 and promised to make improvements, but little had changed since then.
Ronald Reagan during his visit to the South Bronx in 1980 giving remarks in front of a sign that read “decadence.” The Republican presidential candidate went to Charlotte Street, the exact spot where President Carter had visited years before. It was still full of vacant land and rubble.
President Reagan was the last Republican presidential candidate to campaign in the Bronx. He was also the last Republican to win New York State.
Reagan’s visit generated some protests. Protesters behind barricades across the street chanted “they’re not going to do anything” and “go back to California.”
During his 1977 visit, Carter’s motorcade passed blocks of burned buildings and vacant lots. On two occasions he emerged from his caravan to chat with residents and praise the spirit and hope of the town.
President Jimmy Carter in the South Bronx on October 5, 1977 as they toured one of the most devastated areas of the city.
Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton also visited the city. President George W. Bush threw out the first pitch during the World Series just weeks after the 9/11 attack.
