With the presidential campaign entering its final stretch, Donald Trump is making an odd choice. He’s turning his focus to New York City — where he will rally supporters on Sunday at Madison Square Garden.
His deep-blue hometown is a curious place to home in on in the last days of the election as the GOP nominee has the slimmest chances of winning New York.
But strategists on both sides agreed the rally provides an opportunity for Trump to do what he loves most: Put on a spectacle. And where better than the nation’s signature arena?
In fact, New York City may even make perfect sense as a backdrop for Trump’s showmanship. The city is at the center of several signature issues of the former president’s 2024 campaign.
The most obvious is immigration, as the city has struggled with the strain and costs of a massive influx of migrants over the past two years. Trump has frequently claimd the crisis was created by the Biden/Harris administration and has hurt all manor of Americans.
Trump loves to rail about the “rigged” U.S. Justice Department and how he’s been victimized with one prosecution after another. New York is where Trump was convicted in the hush money prosecution over payouts made to porn star Stormy Daniels.
He also has made a habit of talking about how crime-ridden and lawless the streets of New York are, despite crimes being much lower than in the 1980s and ’90s, when Trump was building his real-estate empire in the city.
“To come in here like a conquering hero, having withstood all the slings and arrows over the last year, and to stand right there, in Madison Square Garden, in front of tens of thousands of people, and to say, ‘Here I am on the verge of being victorious. I’m gonna be President of the United States again,’ is something that everybody in the country is going to be watching,” said Robert Hornak, a Republican political strategist.
The former president is reportedly slated to speak on Sunday about how Vice President Harris and President Biden failed voters on the economy, immigration and other issues.
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Trump has promised a blockbuster event that will play up his star power. (AP)
A spectacle
Trump has promised a blockbuster event that will play up his star power in the final stretch of the election. The unusual choice for a rally is intended to put on a show for swing state voters looking on from afar, experts said.
“Part of it is the spectacle, the showmanship, him trying to highlight the business success,” said Democratic strategist Trip Yang. “Part of it just seems to be on a personality level, on an ego level, he really likes the whole MSG spectacle. If you work in show business, and you can say you sold out MSG, that’s a huge feather in your cap.”
It’s a way to get attention — plus some campaign cash, with Trump hawking an “Ultra-MAGA experience” that runs attendees $924,0000 for top-tier access at the rally.
Mike Morey, a Democratic consultant said that generating a “circus” at the venue, which has a capacity of nearly 20,000, is exactly the point: “This will be a circus, but that’s his intention, because Donald Trump has never attempted to actually talk about policy or issues.”
Trump previously hosted a rally in Long Island in September, and a May rally in the Bronx drew hundreds of both supporters and protesters.
“We’re wrapping it up,” Trump said of the campaign at a Greensboro, N.C. rally on Tuesday, adding that he wanted to close out “with a beautiful bang” at the Garden.
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Donald Trump supporters attend his rally in the Bronx earlier this year. The former President said recently, “We’re going to make a play for New York.” (Getty)
‘We’re gonna make a play for New York’
At rallies, Trump has repeatedly claimed that he has a chance at winning the Empire State.
That’s extremely unlikely: The state hasn’t voted Republican in a presidential election since 1984, when New York voted Ronald Reagan for re-election, and Harris has a 16-point lead over Trump in New York, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll.
But Trump, in New York and elsewhere in the country, has been cheered on by supporters while painting an apocalyptic picture of New York City, calling it representative of the failings of liberal rule.
He’s regularly lobbed attacks Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for his hush money case against Trump, which kept the former president mostly confined to the city for much of this past spring. Trump, who was convicted by a Manhattan jury of 34 felonies, has claimed Bragg and other prosecutors have led a politically-motivated “witch hunt” against him. He has also used concerns about crime as a bludgeon against Bragg and other prosecutors and lawmakers.
Moreover, Trump has stirred fear with rhetoric around the influx of migrants entering the country from the southern border. He has campaigned on unsubstantiated claims of a “migrant crime wave,” using New York City, which saw over 200,000 migrant arrivals since Spring 2022, as an example of what the dangers of unchecked immigration could look like.
“We’re going to make a play for New York,” Trump said at the North Carolina rally. “It hasn’t been won in many, many decades, but with what’s going on in New York, between the illegal migrants and the crime they’re causing and hurting people so badly, and all of the problems in New York, we’re going to give it a hell of a shot.”
“He knows full well that he has zero chance of winning in New York, but what he wants to do is put on a spectacle for the rest of the country,” Morey said.
While Trump faces basically no chance of winning the state, many of the points he’s campaigned on still have relevance to some voters.
Republicans hope his presence at Madison Square Garden might lend some momentum to House Republicans like Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro who are fighting for re-election.
Hornak, the Republican strategist, said Trump and other Republicans have used the issues of immigration, public safety and cost of living to create a foothold in New York.
During the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats lost five seats in districts surrounding the city and saw a tight race between Gov. Hochul and her Republican challenger, Lee Zeldin.
“There’s definitely a move that’s been building in New York, which has only gotten worse over the last two years with this massive and super expensive influx of migrants coming into New York City,” Hornak said.
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State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Signal compared the event to the Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939. (AP)
Democratic backlash
The rally has caused controversy among local Democrats, including State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Signal, who on X earlier this month slammed the event as “equivalent to the infamous Nazis rally at Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939.”
Hoylman-Sigal, whose district on the west side of Manhattan includes the Garden, said that Trump’s decision to campaign in New York in the last stretch of his campaign appears futile.
“Trump is pushing to his hard-right-wing choir in, of all states, deep-blue New York,” Hoylman-Sigal told the Daily News. “I’m not a political strategist, but it doesn’t seem to make much sense in the closing days of the election.
“It’s a waste of his time and precious campaign resources, if you ask me. So I guess I’m happy whenever he’s not in a swing state that actually matters.”
