Photo: Emily Elconin/Bloomberg/Getty Images
For months, Donald Trump was expected to spend Wednesday in a Manhattan courtroom, awaiting his sentence in his hush-money trial. Judge Juan Merchan ended up pushing the hearing until after Election Day, but the former president is still spending the day in his home state, holding a campaign rally in the Republican stronghold of Nassau County on Long Island.
Trump’s campaign announced the event at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale in an email to supporters last Tuesday, the day of his debate against Vice-President Kamala Harris. “Nassau County is reeling from the harmful effects of the dangerously liberal policies championed by Kamala Harris and Democrats like Eric Adams,” it read.
The decision to hold a rally in reliably blue New York rather than a battleground state with just over two months until the election is a curious one — the last Republican presidential candidate to win the state was Ronald Reagan in 1984. Similarly, a Republican candidate hasn’t been elected to statewide office since Governor George Pataki. But Nassau County has long been friendly to the Republican Party, with the region recently adopting conservative policies such as a ban on trans athletes using county facilities and a law barring people from wearing face masks in public.
Of course, Trump has shown an openness to campaigning in the state, staging a rally in the South Bronx in May while he was required to be in town for his trial. Ahead of his visit, Trump made his case to New Yorkers, vowing to remove the cap on SALT deductions, an unpopular policy in the region that he signed into law as president in 2017. “We have a real chance of winning, for the first time in many decades, New York. Hundreds of thousands of Migrants, Crime at record levels, Terrorists pouring in, Inflation eating your hearts out — WHAT THE HELL DO YOU HAVE TO LOSE? VOTE FOR TRUMP!” he wrote on Truth Social.
New York is also the site of several key House races that will determine which party controls the chamber next year. In 2022, Republicans flipped four Democratic seats in New York, including two on Long Island, paving the road to their House majority. Congressman Anthony D’Esposito, who represents Uniondale and is seeking reelection in a tight race, is expected to join Trump at the rally. Other vulnerable House members in the region like Congressmen Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro, and Brandon Williams are not planning on attending, per the New York Times.
The Long Island rally is only the second public event that Trump has taken part in since the Secret Service thwarted an apparent assassination attempt against him at his West Palm Beach golf club. In an interview with Fox Business, Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman said that the region is used to hosting large events and dignitaries, citing recent and upcoming visits from the Dalai Lama and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. “We have it under control and we’re working with the Secret Service, our federal, state, and local partners, and we will have all the assets necessary to make sure that President Trump is safe and that everybody who is attending the rally is safe,” he said.
There was a brief stir ahead of the rally’s 7 p.m. start time when rumors spread that an explosive device had been discovered close to the rally site. The rumor was amplified by conservative outlets and allies like Elon Musk who shared a post on his social media platform X. Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a screenshot of a Daily Mail article on the alleged incident, writing “THEY WILL NOT STOP UNTIL THEY KILL TRUMP!” However, law enforcement later denounced the rumor. “Reports of explosives being found at the site are unfounded,” Nassau County police commissioner Patrick Ryder said in a statement.
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