AMAC Exclusive – By Andrew Shirley
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News released on January 2, former President Donald Trump stated his intention to make a “heavy play” to win liberal strongholds – including deep blue New York.
While Trump’s bold plan predictably drew jeers and mockery from media pundits and elected Democrats, some polling suggests that the Empire State might not be out of reach. Moreover, even if Trump doesn’t win the state, a competitive battle there could divert Democrat resources from other battleground states and force the Biden campaign on the defensive in states they thought they’d never have to worry about.
“I’m going to do rallies, I’m going to do speeches, I’m going to work them,” Trump told Breitbart. “I may rent Madison Square Garden and that’s the belly of the beast, right?”
Trump specifically outlined a slate of failures by Democrat leaders in New York that could make the state fertile ground for what would be one of the most shocking political upsets in American history.
“You have migrants living on Madison Avenue,” Trump said. “You can’t get into a hospital. You can’t get into a school… I think it’s really bad and I think the people in New York and New Jersey and a lot of these states are—it would have been semi-unthinkable, but I think these are states that can be won.”
Given recent presidential election results in New York, a GOP victory there in 2024 may seem impossible. The last Republican presidential candidate to carry the state was Ronald Reagan, who won there in both the 1980 and 1984 elections. Since then, the best performances by a Republican presidential nominee were George W. Bush’s 40 percent in 2004 and Trump’s 37.8 percent in 2020.
New York also hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 2002 and hasn’t sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 1992.
But there are nonetheless some emerging signs that 2024 could see a political earthquake in New York.
Perhaps most alarmingly for the Biden campaign, the president’s lead in a potential rematch with Trump this year has shrunk to just 10 points in the latest Siena poll fielded last November. After Biden won the state by more than 23 points in 2020, his advantage has now been more than cut in half – and that’s without any concerted effort by Trump to flip the state.
In that same poll, just 45 percent of New Yorkers said they approve of the job Biden is doing as president, compared to 53 percent who disapprove. 55 percent of Democrats polled said they wanted someone other than Joe Biden to be the Democrat nominee for president.
Other Democrat leaders are also deeply unpopular in New York, creating a potential opportunity for a Republican to capitalize on that discontentment. A Marist poll released last November found Governor Hochul’s approval to be just 41 percent, compared to 42 percent who disapprove of her performance. 59 percent of respondents said quality of life had deteriorated in the state over the past year.
52 percent of respondents in that poll also said they disapproved of the job Hochul was doing to address crime, including a full 35 percent of Democrats. Democrat Mayor Eric Adams is in even worse shape with only a 28 percent job approval.
Issue polling further supports the idea that Trump could compete in New York in 2024. In another Siena poll released last August, 82 percent of New Yorkers said the influx of migrants into the state was a “serious problem.” 58 percent of respondents – including 48 percent of Democrats – said, “New Yorkers have already done enough for new migrants and should now work to slow the flow of migrants to New York.” Since then, the migrant crisis has only gotten worse, and now at least one school has been closed to students in order to house migrants.
The brewing intraparty war among Democrats over the response to the Israel-Gaza war could be another big problem for Biden and other down-ballot Democrats this November. While New York’s 1.6 million Jewish residents typically skew heavily liberal, Democrats’ lackluster response to the outpouring of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment from the left might cost them big at the ballot box.
Recent electoral results in New York also suggest that Republicans still have a fighting chance in the state.
GOP Congressman Lee Zeldin ran within five points of incumbent Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul in 2022’s gubernatorial contest. Along with Zeldin’s strong showing, Republicans flipped six competitive House seats, including the ouster of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Sean Patrick Maloney – perhaps the crowning achievement for House Republicans in the midterm elections.
In 2024, Democrats will face their toughest political landscape in decades in New York. Whether or not it will be enough for Trump or another potential Republican nominee to have a shot at victory there remains to be seen, but at the very least it is an opportunity that should not be ignored.
Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.
