Photo: Michael M. Santiago Pool via Agence France-Presse Donald Trump has campaigned in other states traditionally won by Democrats in recent weeks, such as New Jersey and Minnesota.
Gregory Walton – Agence France-Presse in the Bronx
Posted at 3:36 p.m.
- United States
Donald Trump is expected on Thursday for a rare rally in the Bronx, a disadvantaged district of New York where a majority of Hispanics and African-Americans live, a new sign that he intends to seduce this electorate who leans Democratic.
Often blocked in New York by his mandatory presence at his trial for hidden payments to an X-rated movie star, Donald Trump has recently increased his campaign outings in his hometown, going to a grocery store in Harlem or having his photo taken in a fire station.
The elected representative to the House of Representatives and figure of the American left Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose constituency includes part of the Bronx, s he Republican presidential candidate was mocked by claiming he was coming to these lands because he “has an ankle bracelet” and needs to stay close to the Manhattan courthouse. “It's really an embarrassment for him,” she scoffed.
Donald Trump has campaigned in other traditionally Democratic states in recent weeks , like New Jersey and Minnesota.
By traveling to the Bronx, where more than 55 percent are Hispanic and nearly 30 percent African-American, he hopes to show that he can also rally these minorities, who contributed crucially to his victory. Democratic rival Joe Biden in 2020. And grab precious votes from his opponent, to swing key states on November 5.
For his first rally in New York since 2016 , the Republican will likely focus on crime and the difficult economic conditions for the working classes, in a borough where about a third of residents live below the poverty line, the highest rate in New York.< /p>
83% for Biden in 2020
Democratic stronghold, the Bronx voted for Joe Biden to over 83% in 2020 (15.8% for Donald Trump). In 2008, Barack Obama flirted with 89% of the vote.
But some signs give hope to the Republicans: in 2023, the conservative party won a municipal councilor seat from the Democrats, a rare victory.
Elected officials and associations of left have planned to protest against Donald Trump's visit and counter-demonstrations will be organized near the meeting.
Donald Trump was criticized for recently claiming that his problems judicial and his indictments in four different cases made him sympathetic to African-Americans mistreated by the judicial system, in a country where the rate of incarceration of black people is much higher than their share in the population.
But polls have shown he has made gains among African Americans and Hispanics, particularly among young people and those who blame Joe Biden for rising immigration illegal at the Mexican border.
Donald Trump has made increasingly violent remarks about migrants, whom he accused of “poisoning” the “blood” of America, and promises mass expulsions, even if it means resorting to the army, he returns to the White House.
Joe Biden's campaign aired an ad before the meeting focusing on racial controversies in New York in the 1970s and 1980s about the real estate mogul, accused of refusing to rent apartments to black families. He also called for the death penalty for the five black and Hispanic teenagers wrongly accused and convicted of the rape of a woman in Central Park, one of the most famous cases of miscarriages of justice in the United States, with the racism as a backdrop.
Donald Trump's campaign team responded that his opponent was panicking “because black voters don't believe what Mr. Biden is selling them.”
“Black voters, like all Americans, are worse off today than they were under President Trump and all the polls reflect this reality,” assured a spokesperson, Janiyah Thomas.< /p>