Why New Yorkers Don't Vote For Donald Trump

Yes, his birthplace really does hate him.

Normally when a candidate runs for president, that person usually wins the home state where that person was originally born and grew up in. In Donald Trump's case he failed to win his home state of New York in 2016 and 2020 even though he was born in New York and he lived there for much of his adult life until he moved to the White House after he was elected in 2016. (He has since switched his home state from New York to Florida.) He is projected to lose his native New York state once again this year.

Why has Donald Trump never enjoyed the hometown advantage? Let me put it this way. I was once married to a native New Yorker and we used to visit New York City at least once a year to visit his friends and family. Not once had I ever heard those friends and relatives ever say anything even remotely positive about Donald Trump. In fact, Donald Trump is widely hated in New York and that hatred is evenly distributed among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents of all political stripes.

My late father-in-law once directly opposed Trump. He lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with his second wife (my ex's stepmother). There was a piece of green space near where my ex's father and stepmother lived that people had long used as a public park. It was the last remaining green space in the Upper West Side and it was for people who wanted to go to a park to chill but didn't feel like taking a longer walk to Central Park.

That last green space was threatened when Donald Trump announced a new building project right in that green space. As you can imagine the locals weren't thrilled with losing their beloved park. My father-in-law was among those who lobbied the city council urging them to turn down Trump's project. I believe that he mentioned that he was among the original organizers of that opposition.

It went on for a few years but Trump ultimately won because his friend Rudy Giuliani was the mayor at the time plus there were a few Trump cronies sitting on the city council.

So the new condo development was built and it was named Trump Place. Here's the kicker: In 2016, after Trump won the election, the residents of Trump Place overwhelmingly approved a measure to remove Trump's name from that development. My father-in-law passed away the following year but I'm sure that he was happy that he lived long enough to see Donald Trump get his conuppance for destroying the last green space.

Here's another example of why Donald Trump is so hated. In 1980 the then-33-year-old Trump managed to evict a 74-year-old widow named Mary Filan who had lived in her apartment for over 30 years and she had become partially paralyzed from a recent stroke. Trump claimed that she hadn't paid her rent in four months while Filan not only denied it but she said that she had paid her last bill she received from Trump for $10.20 just two weeks earlier. She had been paying $200 a month rent but there were accusations that Trump just wanted to get rid of her so he could lease her apartment to a tenant who was willing to pay a higher rent. Here's a newspaper article about that eviction.

Some of you reading this might think that maybe Donald Trump is more popular in New Jersey because he spent a lot of time in Atlantic City when he opened and operated three casinos. Not really. Like New York, the majority of voters in New Jersey also didn't go for Donald Trump in 2016 or 2020 and they probably won't go for him again this year.

During the height of the pandemic in 2020 I participated in a job hunting group that met exclusively on Zoom a few days a week for three months. One of my cohorts was a woman who recently moved from New Jersey to Maryland in order to live closer to her adult daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren. She said that when she still lived in New Jersey she went on a business trip where she attended a conference that met in Atlantic City. She met a man who was an Atlantic City local and he had dealt with all kinds of people, including some who may have had ties to the mob. She told my group that this man said to her that of all the people he has ever dealt with, Donald Trump was one of only two people he vowed that he would never do business with again under any circumstances.

That says it all about what kind of “successful” celebrity businessman Donald Trump really is. And by the way, his three Atlantic City casinos ultimately ended up being bankrupt and closed.

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