(NewsNation) — Former President Donald Trump returned to his home state to hold a rally in Long Island, New York, with 48 days left until Election Day.
Trump, for his part, leaned heavily on his alarmist message about immigration at the rally in Uniondale, focusing the bulk of his remarks on the subject.
“We’re just destroying the fabric of life in our country. And we’re not going to take it any longer. And you got to get rid of these people. Give me a shot,” Trump said.
In his nearly 90-minute address, Trump confirmed plans to visit Springfield, Ohio, and Aurora, Colorado, following unsubstantiated claims about Haitian migrants. He also campaigned for New York Republicans in crucial congressional races.
Trump addressed the recent decision by the Teamsters union not to endorse him, stating he was “honored to receive the endorsement of rank and file Teamsters” despite the lack of official union backing.
The former president accused Iran of hacking his campaign and providing materials to the Biden campaign, calling it “foreign election interference.”
Focusing on crime, Trump promised to “stop the Kamala crime wave,” referring to Vice President Kamala Harris. He criticized the current administration’s border policies, stating, “I want to be known as your border president. Kamala will be known as your invasion president.”
The former president also announced plans to officially designate the ground zero site at the World Trade Center as a national monument “so the heroes there will be preserved for all time.”
He ripped into Democratic leadership in New York City and state, blaming them for homeless people living in what he called “horrible, disgusting, dangerous, filthy encampments,” and even the conditions on the New York City subway, which he called “squalid and unsafe” and promised to renovate.
“What the hell do you have to lose?” he said in asking for their votes.
Before heading out to the suburbs, Trump stopped at a Bitcoin cafe in New York City. Trump has recently embraced cryptocurrency and helped launch his family’s new cryptocurrency venture Monday night.
While New York is generally considered to be a reliably blue state, the former president has said a few times over the last few months that he believes New York and neighboring New Jersey could be in play this year. There’s not a lot of polling data coming out from the state, but a recent poll from Siena College taken in late July and early August gave Vice President Kamala Harris a 14-point advantage.
In hopes of swaying voters, he’s planning on focusing on key issues, including the cost of living in New York and how it’s soared in recent years.
On the border issue, Trump said of the Biden-Harris administration, “When they got in, they let everybody pour into our country. When I got elected, I believe it was the border that was the biggest thing and I fixed it and I did a great job,” Trump said. “I wanted to mention it in 2020 and my people would say, ‘Sir, nobody cares about the border.’ They don’t care because I had it fixed. Now I got to fix it again.”
There hasn’t been a lot of attention paid to New York, with pollsters focusing on major battleground states, but Trump is still doing his best to pitch his message to voters. That’s especially true after 2022, when Republicans made some gains during the midterm election.
However, one of those districts flipped back to Democrats after the resignation of GOP Rep. George Santos. But Republicans are still emphasizing the area, including Long Island, in hopes of retaining control of the House of Representatives and potentially picking up some new seats for the party.
By holding a rally in Uniondale, Trump was focusing on an area that could be key to Republicans maintaining control of the House. His party is trying to protect 18 Republicans in Democratic-heavy congressional districts that Joe Biden carried in 2020, particularly in coastal New York and California, and going on offense to challenge Democrats elsewhere.
Long Island in particular features one of the most closely watched races, between first-term Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito and Democrat Laura Gillen. D’Esposito is a former New York police detective who won in 2022 in a district that Biden won by about 15 percentage points in 2020.
Trump posted Tuesday on his Truth Social platform that the GOP has “a real chance of winning” New York “for the first time in many decades.” In that same post, Trump also pledged that he would “get SALT back,” suggesting he would eliminate a cap on state and local tax deductions that were part of tax cut legislation he signed into law in 2017.
The so-called SALT cap has led to bigger tax bills for many residents of New York, New Jersey, California and other high-cost, high-tax states, and is an important campaign issue in those states, particularly among those New York Republicans serving in districts Biden won.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.