President Trump speaking, left, and Rep. Ritchie John Torres, right, who said Bronx residents won't be fooled by Trump. (Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images)
It will mark Trump’s first rally in the state since an upstate Buffalo event in 2016. Biden topped Trump with 76% of the city's vote in the 2020 election. Statewide, Biden took 60.87% of the vote.
In announcing the rally, Trump’s campaign took several swipes at President Biden’s record over the last three and a half years in relation to crime and inflation.
"Both New York City and the state at large have been ravaged by monumental surges in violent crime as a direct result of Biden’s and Democrats’ pro-criminal policies," the campaign said in the announcement. "Murders in New York City are up 23.1 percent from 2019 levels, while felony assault is up 35.4 percent. These upticks are incomprehensible and devastating."
The campaign highlighted Trump’s fondness of the state he once called home until he switched his permanent residence to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida in 2019. Although he has been forced back to stand trial in his "hush money" case and his defamation case with E Jean Carroll.
TRUMP PROSECUTORS' CASE IS 'DEAD' AND CANNOT BE REVIVED, SAYS FORMER MICHAEL COHEN ADVISER
Trump speaks during a campaign event at Wildwood Beach in Wildwood, New Jersey on May 11, 2024. ( Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Many business owners in the borough, however, didn’t know that the rally would be taking place when contacted by Fox News Digital this morning.
Liz Adreu, a manager at the Bronx restaurant Chocobar Cortes was one of those unaware but said she would "probably" vote for Trump.
Reggie O, the owner of Aduanipa African & Caribbean Grill, said he supported Trump’s policies when he was in office, although he didn’t want to say who he would be voting for, adding that he thinks there’s a very real chance that the state could be flipped at some point in the future, adding that his eatery has just opened and hasn’t been on the receiving end of any crime.
Inflation is putting many businesses under financial strain, especially after they weathered the economic storms of pandemic-era lockdowns. Families too are suffering, Trump’s campaign said.
Former president Donald Trump talks with bodega owner Maad Ahmed, center, during a visit to his store on April 16, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
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"New Yorkers have suffered greatly thanks to Biden’s failed policies. With prices in the Empire State up by 17.5 percent since Biden took office, New York families continue to suffer from high inflation on everyday goods," the statement reads.
Trump last month telegraphed he would be campaigning in the Big Apple when he visited Sanaa Convenience Store in Upper Manhattan. A former clerk, Jose Alba, was attacked by an ex-con there in a July 2022 incident before he infamously stabbed the perp to death in self-defense.
"We're going to come into New York, we're making a big play for New York," Trump told reporters outside. "I love this city, and it's gone so bad in the last three years, four years, and we're going to straighten New York out."
Michael Dorgan is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.
You can send tips to michael.dorgan@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @M_Dorgan.
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