Yahay Obeid, who came to the US from Yemen at the age of 8, trained as a pilot, and now controls air traffic at JFK airport, is more than a model of American immigrants.
At the top of Donald Trump’s first administration, he was criticized in a speech by the Democratic representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the Bronx, as a victim of the “Muslim ban”, the government shutdown, and “anti-immigration. sentiment” flowing from the White House.
But on Tuesday, Obeid and possibly thousands of members of the Muslim community in the Bronx — which contains the poorest and bluest Congressional district in the U.S. — voted for Trump, as did many of the area’s Hispanic and Latino residents.
“What we’ve done now is the Democrats’ responsibility,” Obeid said of the 65,000 new Trump voters in the area, which the Republican candidate targeted with promises to fight inflation and illegal immigration. “They have taken our votes for granted.”
In a swing that shook the Democratic establishment in New York City, Kamala Harris won only 73 percent of the vote in the Bronx – 10 percentage points less than Joe Biden achieved in 2020. Voting patterns in the area, where more than 70 percent of voters are registered the Democrats, suggest that the party loses its support among the people that once formed its core base.
For many in the Bronx, which has the worst public health record in the nation, the calculation is, “how much worse?” said former firefighter Mike Rendino, chairman of the Bronx Republican party. “At some point they realize the Democrats’ policies aren’t working anymore.”
Rubén DÃaz Sr., a former state senator and registered Democrat who introduced Trump at a rally in Crotona Park in May and spent the past few weeks driving around the Bronx in a truck to campaign for the Republican, said the backlash against his own party was long overdue. .
“We are Hispanic, we are not liberal, we are conservative”, said the ordained minister. Even among first- and second-generation immigrant communities, illegal migration “is one of the main problems”, he added.
DÃaz said there was anger over measures such as debit cards given by the city government to migrant families to buy food.
While the Bronx, which has been governed by Democrats for decades, suffers from a high rate of murder and violent crime, the Republican stronghold of Staten Island “has better security, better street cleaning, better services”, added Diaz.
Even before Trump’s re-election bid, a small shift toward Republicans was already in place. Last year, the Bronx voted in its first Republican on the city council in 40 years.
Although the Republican party itself did not spend money on the campaign in the Bronx, Trump sought to use the growing support in the area, visiting once for a rally, and once for filming. Fox & Friends A segment in a local barbershop, when he tells his customers: “You’re the same as me.” He is the first Republican presidential candidate to campaign in the Bronx since Ronald Reagan, who won New York.
On the contrary, Harris and the Democrats forgot that the people of the Bronx were “just like other ordinary Americans”, according to Sammy Ravelo, who came to America from the Dominican Republic as a young man and served in the US Army. New York police officer. “He knows his pocket, how much the egg is worth.”
The local Democratic politician’s assertion that Trump would cut Social Security payments was viewed as an insult by some, Ravelo added, because of the implication that the community is dependent on the government. “The Dominican community is not a monolith,” he said.
Far from Trump’s promise to implement mass deportations of illegal immigrants, a small but large number of Dominicans welcomed the tough stance, Ravelo said. “You know who wants mass deportation the most?” Ravelo, who was one of the first responders during the September 11 attacks, asked. “Legal migrants.”
A storekeeper in the Morris Park neighborhood of the Bronx, who asked not to be named, said he has agreed with Republicans on cultural issues such as opposition to “Proposition 1,” a proposed amendment to the New York constitution that conservatives claim would allow transgender people. boys to play on the girls’ sports team, which passed Tuesday night.
Trump’s request for a Bronx vote is under fire. At an October rally in Manhattan, a comedian created outrage by calling Puerto Rico a “floating pile of garbage.”
“Trump needs to fire anyone who allows that person to continue,” said Rendino of the Republican party, who thinks he has lost significant support in the region.
But efforts by Democrats to talk about the threat Trump poses to democracy itself are growing, Obeid said, especially among the Yemeni community, whose elders overwhelmingly endorsed the Republican candidate days before the election.
“We grew up in a dictatorship, you can’t lie to us by calling someone who is outspoken a dictator,” he said. However, with what he sees as a tacit endorsement of the “carnage” taking place in Gaza, “we feel the world will end under Biden”.
Reacting to Trump’s victory, Bronx Democratic congressman Ritchie Torres blamed “the left”, adding that the working class “doesn’t buy the ivory tower nonsense”.
This is not true for Obeid. On Tuesday, while voting for Trump, he also voted to re-elect Ocasio-Cortez, one of the senior New York City politicians who has called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
