Trump’s Long Island Crowd Photos Fuel GOP Talk of Battle for New York

MAGA world is dreaming of a surprise presidential election victory in New York as photos of a packed Long Island rally for former President Donald Trump go viral.

President Joe Biden won New York by 23 percentage points in 2020 and the state is not considered by most to be in play this year. While polling of the 2024 election has been limited pertaining to New York, every poll released since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate has shown her leading Trump in the state by double digits.

With less than 50 days before Election Day, and despite chances of a Trump win in the Empire State appearing slim, the former president spoke before an enthusiastic crowd of supporters in Uniondale on Wednesday at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, a venue with a capacity of 16,000.

“When I told some people in Washington that I’m going up to New York, we’re doing a campaign speech, they said, ‘What do you mean New York? You can’t ever … Republicans can’t win New York,” Trump told the crowd.

“I said, ‘I can win New York,'” he continued. “We can win New York. We’re going to win New York … Your love for your state will come roaring back.”

Newsweek reached out for comment to the Trump and Harris campaigns via email on Wednesday night.

Images and comments touting the size of the crowd—an issue that the former president has seemingly been fixated on since launching his political career—were quickly shared to social media by the Trump campaign and supporters before the event had even concluded.

“A MASSIVE TRUMP RALLY underway at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York—on beautiful Long Island! #TRUMP2024,” Trump campaign adviser Dan Scavino Jr. wrote while sharing a short video of the rally to X, formerly Twitter.

“LONG ISLAND IS TRUMP COUNTRY!” conservative podcaster Mike Crispi wrote. “Crowds like Wildwood and crowds like Uniondale have the Dems petrified. Trump can win New Jersey and New York and this proves it. Period.”

“Trump won New York tonight,” wrote Students for Trump co-founder Ryan Fournier. “This was phenomenal.”

“The sea of patriots here to see Trump on Long Island is INSANE,” pro-Trump commentator Nick Sortor wrote while sharing a short video. “Local media is reporting over 50,000 PEOPLE (and climbing!) in the overflow area already, and Trump doesn’t speak for several more hours … This TERRIFIES Kamala … New York is turning out for Trump!”

During an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Republican former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said that Trump “believes he has a real chance to carry New York because of the corruption, because of the wicked liberal policies and because of the impact of all those millions of illegal immigrants.”

“And of course now, you have a major scandal in New York City affecting the mayor,” Gingrich added, referring to New York City Mayor Eric Adams and several of his associates being targeted by federal investigations. “That’s breaking at the worst possible time for Democrats.”

Others were less than convinced about the political wisdom of Trump spending campaign time and resources in New York.

“New York is Harris-Walz country,” Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul wrote on X. “If Trump wants to waste his time campaigning in a state he lost by over 20 points, be my guest.”

“Trump is wasting his time holding a rally in New York, delusional enough to think he can win there,” wrote Mike Nellis, former Harris adviser. “He should be campaigning in a battleground state, but he just can’t keep his eye on the ball—one of the key reasons he’s losing this race.”

While thousands of Trump supporters attended the rally on Wednesday, Trump opponents also arrived in Uniondale to protest the former president’s event. Protesters included a group of Haitian immigrants outraged by Trump and his allies continuing to spread false claims about migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

“Long Island Haitians are holding a counter rally outside the Nassau Comiseum [sic] where Trump is slated to speak tonight,” journalist John Asbury wrote while sharing an image of the Haitian group holding a banner reading, “We Don’t Eat Pets, We Vote.”

“Standing united with fellow Nassau Democrats against Trump and his poisonous political rhetoric outside of his rally in Uniondale. #NassauColiseum,” Democratic state Senator Kevin Thomas wrote alongside an image of himself speaking to a group protesting outside the rally.

No Republican presidential candidate has won New York since former President Ronald Reagan in 1984. However, Long Island is considerably less blue than New York City, where the former president was born and officially resided until switching his residence to Florida in 2019.

In Nassau County, Biden defeated Trump by just under 10 points in 2020, less than half his margin in the state as a whole. Nassau is one of four counties on Long Island and has a population of roughly 1.4 million. Trump won neighboring Suffolk County, which has a population of around 1.5 million, by a minuscule margin of 232 votes in 2020.

The remaining two counties on Long Island, Queens County and Kings County, vote overwhelmingly Democratic and have far larger populations, although they both take up much less territory of the island.

With over 1 million people having voted for Trump in 2020 in Long Island and New York City combined, a large crowd attending a Trump rally in Uniondale is far from surprising and does not necessarily indicate that the former president is enjoying a groundswell of support in the Empire State.