Former President Donald Trump will hold a campaign rally in the South Bronx next week, and his first major gathering of supporters in his native state since his first White House bid comes on the heels of a record-breaking event at the Jersey Shore.
The May 23 rally will take place at 6 p.m. in Crotona Park, and the Trump campaign has a permit for up to 3,500 people to attend, his campaign announced Friday.
Trump, 77, is expected to speak on the Empire State’s economy, crime rate and migrant crisis. It’s his first rally in his birth state since Buffalo in 2016.
“New Yorkers have suffered greatly thanks to Biden’s failed policies,” Team Trump said in the announcement.
“The Empire State, a place near to President Trump’s heart, has been decimated by Biden,” it continued.
“President Trump will ease the financial pressures placed on households and re-establish law and order in New York!”
The Trump campaign highlighted double-digit percentage point increases in murder and assault rates in New York since 2019, and a surge in the cost of goods in the state since Biden, 81, took office.
“We can Make America Great Again by tackling lawlessness head-on, ceasing the endless flow of illegal immigrants across our southern border, and reversing the detrimental effects of inflation by restoring people’s wealth,” the statement concluded.
Trump, a native New Yorker who officially moved to his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort in 2019, has frequently been in Manhattan of late as he stands trial over alleged hush-money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.
On at least two occasions, the former president has made public post-court stops in the Big Apple with his 2024 campaign team.
On April 16, the day after the start of the trial, Trump visited the Harlem bodega where clerk Jose Alba was hit with a murder charge for fatally stabbing an assailant who went behind the counter to attack him. The murder charge was eventually dropped.
Throngs of Trump supporters descended outside the bodega during the event.
A few weeks later, on May 2, Trump and his campaign team delivered pizzas to a Manhattan firehouse after his day in court.
On Saturday, Trump held a rally in Wildwood, NJ, that drew an estimated crowd of between 80,000 and 100,000 people — a record for a Garden State political rally.
An April Siena College poll showed Biden up 10 points on Trump in the Empire State.
Biden is also ahead in New Jersey, where a survey released by Emerson College Polling in March showed the incumbent up by 7 points.
