Donald Trump Lost in New York, But He Is Slowly Winning It Over

(Bloomberg) - Donald Trump said he could win New York. He didn't, but his home state did shift right — helping him potentially win the American popular vote.

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With 97% of votes counted, Trump won 30.5% of New York City and 43.3% of the state — the most by any Republican presidential candidate since at least 1996, according to preliminary City and State Boards of Elections data. Even in bright-blue Manhattan, Kamala Harris won the lowest number of votes by a Democratic presidential nominee since Al Gore in 2000.

The shift reflects a broader reddening across US cities, suburbs and rural areas, setting up Trump's re-election and return to the White House. The electoral gains were fueled by voter concerns such as rising costs and the toll of a surge in illegal immigration.

National exit polls also show Trump gained ground with Black and Latino voters — two demographics that together comprise about half of New York City's population. As of Wednesday afternoon, the Republican — who lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020 — leads Harris by about 5 million votes nationally.

Trump's improved margins in New York follows a spike in crime in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the arrival of more than 200,000 migrants that threatened to overwhelm the city's resources. And like much of the country, the city experienced significant increases in the cost of living even as it struggled to recover from the pandemic.

At Grant City Tavern in ruby-red Staten Island, customers burst into cheers as the results of the 2024 presidential election rolled in Tuesday. One man sported an American flag cowboy hat, while a woman had her hair tied back with a red, white and blue ribbon.

A framed photograph of Trump hangs above the bar, and the ceiling is painted in red, white and blue. Amid the cheers, Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA played over the speakers.

"This is a disaster what we're living, so make America great again," said Doreen Reddy, a 56-year-old saleswoman.

While Trump's relationship with New York has been fraught in recent years, he has make efforts to stir up excitement among his base in the Empire State. He held a rally for 20,000 people at Madison Square Garden, lured his supporters in the Bronx to an event in Crotona Park, and visited the gravesite of Chabad Grand Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson in Queens.

Preliminary data show Trump's margins improved in every borough in the city over his 2020 returns — particularly in Northern Queens, Southern Brooklyn and parts of the Bronx, areas with large numbers of Asian-American and Latino voters, according to Democratic political strategist Trip Yang. In some parts of Queens with heavily Latino populations, "Kamala Harris did 30 points worse than Biden did," Yang said.

In the South Bronx, Petronila Ramos Ramirez said she voted for Trump with her husband and her son because they liked "almost everything" about him.

In recent months, crime has decreased and the number of migrants in the city's care has stabilized. But those issues seem to have played a role in some voters' thinking in the election.

In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Lateef Taylor, 32, said he went against his grandmother's wishes and voted for Trump in part because of the migrant crisis.

"He wants the border to be up," he said. "We started laughing at him. Now we're crying."

For two years, Mayor Eric Adams warned that migrants could "destroy" New York, and proposed drastic budget cuts to city services, trash pickup, library hours and police classes in response. He has since reversed those curbs.

Adams also repeatedly blamed President Joe Biden's administration for its failure to manage the immigration crisis.

In Sunset Park, Brooklyn, bodega-owner and New Jersey resident Luz Nunez said she voted for Trump because "this country is upside down."

"Everything is very expensive, rent, food, everything is very high," the first-time voter and Dominican Republic native said in an interview at her store.

She added she was attacked on a train two months ago. "There's no security for our children," Nunez said.

David Liu, a Chinese-American data engineer, said his biggest issue was border security and the use of taxpayer dollars on wars overseas. He's a two-time voter for President Barack Obama, and now three-time voter for Trump.

"Instead of donating money to Ukraine or Israel, use that money for the US," he said walking to his polling both in Sunset Park.

At Downtown Social, a dive bar in Manhattan's East Village, young Republicans wearing 'Make America Great Again' hats spilled onto the sidewalk and vaped on the stoops of buildings nearby. Guests paid for drinks with a token given to them at a door — a fake dollar bill with Trump's smiling face on it.

Tomas Gutierrez, a 24-year-old consultant who moved to the US from Venezuela in 2004, said that he was worried that a Harris government would implement price controls on groceries. "It's going to drive us to the left," he said, as cheers erupted while Fox News called Iowa for Trump. "I saw how socialism has destroyed very wealthy nations."

The shift wasn't just due to an increase in votes for Trump. Harris received almost 600,000 fewer votes than Joe Biden did in 2020, more than six times Trump's gain, according to Steven Romalewski, a director at the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York.

"Trump lost New York City again this time, but he gained vote share mainly because so many would-be Harris voters stayed home," he said.

Trump may have also made inroads with New York's typically left-leaning Jewish community. A Fox News exit poll of Jewish New Yorkers found 46% supported Trump in Tuesday's election, higher than the Jewish vote nationally. New York City has seen a surge in antisemitic hate crimes and bias incidents since Hamas's attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year.

"The Democratic Party got a shot across the bow that the Jewish vote is not to be taken for granted," said Yehuda Kaploun, a Jewish businessman who coordinated with Trump on a strategy to combat antisemitism. He said Trump asked him to reach out to various rabbis within the Jewish community as part of an effort to gain at least 40% of the Jewish vote in New York.

Trump's gains are no guarantee that being a MAGA fan in New York will be any more acceptable. Henry Simon, 24, who grew up on a farm in upstate New York, studies engineering at New York University and says it's been "tough" to be open about his views.

"I almost got kicked out of a party once because I slipped out that I voted for Trump," he said.

-With assistance from Aashna Shah, Nic Querolo and Magdalena Del Valle.

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