President Donald Trump’s well-attended rally in the Bronx last week should be a “wake-up call” for President Biden and the Democratic Party, former New York Democratic Gov. David Paterson said Sunday.
Patterson, a former state Democratic Party chair, noted a recent Siena College poll showed the former Republican president was “close to actually winning New York state,” another warning sign for the Biden campaign and Democratic candidates this fall.
“This is a wake-up call for Democrats, who seem to think that criticizing Trump for something he did four years ago is enough.” “It’s a very sad story,” Patterson said on 77WABC Radio’s “The Cats Roundtable” show. With host John Catsimatidis.
“Or you could argue that inflation isn’t as high as it is. These little things aren’t going to change people’s minds,” Patterson said.
Trump rolled into the heavily Democratic South Bronx neighborhood on Thursday night, drawing thousands of supporters to a rally in Crotona Park.
“It’s a great political move. No argument can be made,” Patterson said of Trump’s rally.
He said four years ago, in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic, Biden and the Democrats allowed Trump to excuse and defend his record as president, but Biden won.
But now Biden must publicly defend his record.
“It could be the other way around,” Patterson said.
A Siena College poll released last week showed Biden leading Trump by a relatively narrow margin, 47% to 38%, in New York, a heavily Democratic state.
Ronald Reagan was the last Republican to win reelection in New York in 1984.
“Political advisers say, ‘You have to treat the people like geniuses,’ and right now the geniuses are trending in New York with Trump trailing Biden by just 9 percentage points,” Patterson said.
“This is a very interesting turn of events,” he said.
Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who is seen as Trump’s potential running mate, on Sunday praised Trump’s aggressive outreach to minority constituencies that largely support Democrats.
“So I think highly of him, [he’s] “We’re going to places Republicans have never been before. To win this election, we’re going to have to go places we’re not invited to,” Scott said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“Not only will he go to the Libertarian Party, [Party] “He’s going to the convention, he’s rallied in the Bronx. He’s doing something, what I consider a 50-state strategy. He’s not just trying to win the votes of the American people, he’s trying to win the hearts and minds of the American people to unite our country and lead us into the strongest, most powerful, most prosperous future we can have,” Scott said.
