The real reason Donald Trump is holding a rally in the Bronx
Polling continues to become more inaccurate, and suspiciously so. For instance, in the recent Democratic Senate primary in Maryland, the polls all showed one candidate ahead the entire time, yet the other candidate won by double digits. The trend we keep seeing is that the polls are drastically under-counting Black voters and youth voters in general. And in general election polling, the polls are somehow showing a sharp rise in Republican support among Black voters and youth voters.
There is of course nothing to support such a trend. Given the Republican Party’s escalating war on women and increasingly blatant racism, there’s no real world reason to think such a shift is happening. And each time people actually go out and vote, we’re reminded that this “trend” does not exist. It wasn’t there in 2020. It wasn’t there in 2022. It’s not there in the one-off elections in 2023 or 2024. It’s just an imaginary thing that only exists in the world of polling, and not the world of Earth.
Yet even as Trump has announced that he’s holding a rally this week in the mostly nonwhite Bronx, we’ve seen the media suggest that this is a sign of Trump seizing upon his newfound popularity with Black voters. Again, this “popularity” does not exist. But since the media is routinely committed to pretending that the most ludicrous pro-Trump poll numbers are accurate (while ignoring all the polls that are good for Biden), the media is now extending this narrative by suggesting that Trump is competitive with Black voters.
Meanwhile back in the real world, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez just pointed out the quite obvious real reason why Trump is holding a rally in the Bronx: he can’t go much further. He’s on criminal trial in Manhattan four days a week, and while a normal person could get on a plane those other three days and hold a rally in a faraway swing state, Trump is way too feeble for that.
And so Trump is mostly limiting his rallies to locales that are close enough to Manhattan that he can make the short trip without completely falling to pieces. The other day Trump’s babysitters let him hold a rally in New Jersey, and while that state is not in play, he was at least able to hold it in a part of New Jersey where he’s popular.
This time around Trump is holding a rally even closer to his trial location, just one borough over. Of course Trump has almost no support in The Bronx. President Biden got 83% of the vote in the Bronx in 2020, and Trump only 15% of the vote. It’s hard to find a place where Trump is less popular.
But by holding a rally in the Bronx, Trump has the benefit of not having to travel far, and his rally will allow the media (on both sides) to further hype the false narrative that Trump is suddenly popular with Black voters. As far as bullshitting goes, the Bronx rally is not a bad idea on the part of Trump’s babysitters.
The tricky part is that because Trump is so widely despised in the Bronx, he won’t find a supportive crowd there. His supporters will have to travel from other locales where he’s more popular (such as Staten Island). And even then, there’s the strong potential for large anti-Trump protests alongside his rally.
Regardless of how this rally plays out, keep in mind that the Bronx hates Donald Trump. And most nonwhite voters in general hate Donald Trump. Just look at how poorly he did with these demographics in 2020. He’s not somehow more popular with these demographics now. No matter what anyone in the media ends up saying about Trump’s Bronx rally, he’s as exceedingly unpopular there as ever.
