One of America’s Most Democratic Counties Prepares for a Trump Visit

After weeks of being the headline-grabbing defendant in a criminal trial in Manhattan, Donald J. Trump will head to Crotona Park in the Bronx for a rally on Thursday where he no doubt hopes to take a more favorable star turn.

Predictably, many people in the Bronx are not happy about that.

“I wish he would just disappear,” said Noel Rivera, a retired subway track worker who was walking his dog in Crotona Park on Wednesday. “Nobody that I know supports him.”

Mr. Trump’s event on Thursday evening in the expansive park in the South Bronx is his first campaign rally in New York State since 2016.

His choice of the Bronx might seem odd, since it is one of the most deeply Democratic counties in the country.In 2020, President Biden won the Bronx by 68 percent. In 2016, Mr. Trump lost the Bronx by more than 300,000 votes.

Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said the rally is part of an effort by Mr. Trump to “make sure that constituents that are not traditionally Republican to get spoken to, are seen and are heard.”