Former President Donald Trump, who is spending most of his time in New York for his hush-money criminal trial, said on Thursday that he has a “good chance” of winning the Democrat stronghold in the 2024 presidential election and teased a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden.
“We’re going to run very hard in New York. We have a good chance of winning New York, in my opinion,” Trump said. “We’re going to give it a shot. We’re very close in New York, I understand. We’re leading in the country by a lot. As you saw yesterday, we’re up by a lot in every swing state, so I think we’re going to do very well.”
The former president then took a shot at his political rival. “Normally, a Democrat would win New York. Biden is the worst president in history and we have some very bad people here, but we have the greatest people and they’re right behind me,” he added.
President Trump says he will hold a massive rally at Madison Square Garden.
"I think we have a good chance of winning New York." pic.twitter.com/5c7teKBWSE
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) April 25, 2024
Trump said he hopes to hold a rally at Madison Square Garden honoring police, firemen, and teachers.
“We’ll be honoring the people that make New York work,” Trump said.
MSG Entertainment told NBC New York that it does “not have any events scheduled with the Trump organization at this time.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alivn Bragg’s criminal trial against Trump, which charges him with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up an alleged affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels, is keeping the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in the Big Apple for four days each week, severely limiting his options to travel for campaign events. Last week after his second day in court, Trump hit the New York campaign trail, meeting with Manhattan bodega workers to discuss the rise in crime in New York City. The former president was met by dozens of people who cheered and waved to him in the street.
New York has been in the hands of Democrats for decades, with the last Republican presidential victory in the state coming in 1984 when Ronald Reagan won every state but Minnesota. In 2022, Republicans were optimistic about a potential major statewide upset in New York in the governor’s race, but GOP candidate Lee Zeldin ultimately fell short of Governor Kathy Hochul by nearly 380,000 votes.
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The two most recent polls of the presidential race in New York, both from Siena, show Biden leading Trump by double digits. Trump currently boasts polling leads over Biden in six of the seven battleground states, according to the RealClearPolitics average. The two candidates are essentially tied nationally with Trump at 44.8% and Biden at 44.5%, according to RCP’s average as of Thursday afternoon.