Red shift in a deep blue city | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News

Red shift in immigrant neighborhoods

Ten days before the November election, Donald Trump capped off his campaign with a rally in his hometown of New York City, held at Madison Square Garden. He vowed to flip the traditionally blue state red.

In the US, states are considered either “red” or “blue” based on which of the two major political parties voters predominantly support―red for Republicans and blue for Democrats.

“It would be such an honor to win New York. Hasn’t been done in decades. Hasn’t been done in so long,” Trump told the crowd.

Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris ended up winning the state, but Trump made inroads. He ran up significant margins in suburban and rural areas, and even in big cities, including New York.

A map created by the City University of New York Graduate Center compares the city’s election results from 2020 with 2024’s preliminary figures. Red shows where Trump won, and blue shows areas won by Joe Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024.

In the latest election, Trump made gains in all five of the city’s boroughs.

Despite the anti-immigrant rhetoric Trump used throughout his campaign, his support from immigrant voters increased.

Professor John Mollenkopf, who directs the research center, said the map shows a citywide shift for Trump.

“In 2020, Trump only won about 22.5 percent of the vote, and in 2024 it looks like he won 30 percent, so he improved his share by about a third,” Mollenkopf said. “He is still far behind the Democrats, but he improved in different Hispanic and Asian communities which were pro-Democratic areas.”

The shift was evident in one of New York City’s most diverse boroughs: the Bronx, which has large Hispanic and African-American communities.

Javiel Rodriguez Jr., 33, runs a barbershop in the Bronx with his father. He said he cast his first-ever ballot for Trump.

Rodriguez called the economy and rising prices his number one concern, adding that his rent had soared by over a thousand dollars under the Biden administration, and prices of food and gas have soared, too.

“It feels like the Democrats haven’t really helped much,” he said. “Business has slowed down here.”

In October, Trump made a surprise visit to the barbershop while campaigning. Rodriguez said he recognized that Trump shares his same commitment to improve his business and community.

“I strongly feel in his mindset with business that he could make a change with the policies,” Rodriguez said, adding that he believes Trump will “build new jobs here on our soil.”

His father, Javiel Rodriquez Sr., 59, is a registered Democrat, but said he also voted for Trump.

The elder Rodriquez noted that some of their customers who used to come every week now only come once a month. He said, “I’m a Democrat, but life is tough here. I work hard and pay for everything, but all these migrants came here and they’re living better than us. They don’t pay for the hotels in Manhattan.”

He said his reason for supporting Trump was straightforward, and he believes many local Democrats share it: The president-elect “came here to say hi and saw with his eyes how the problem was,” while Harris did not make an appearance.

In the borough of Queens, Trump’s birthplace, support for Republicans grew by 10 percent, partly due to more votes from Asian Americans.

MAGA resonates with some Asian Americans

Ed Lee, 48, is a Korean American resident of Queens who voted for Trump.

He hopes the president-elect might make cities safer under his “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) policies. Two years ago, Lee said a stranger randomly attacked him on the subway, hitting him in the face.

Lee called the Democrats’ approach to immigration “hypocrisy,” and said he does not see anything improving.

“We’re tired of not seeing results and really, Asian Americans are looking for a more safe community to actually live in, to actually live out the American dream,” Lee said.

Pei-te Lien, Professor at University of California Santa Barbara, has been studying Asian Americans’ political participation.

She said while she would not call the shift a red tide, “I call it a pink tide, at least among Asian Americans. It’s a compilation of issues.”

Lien said more people are affected by issues like inflation and rising crime rates in big cities, and this has culminated in their desire to alter the status quo by voting “no” to incumbent Democrats and their policies.

Lee said he senses more Asian Americans in the community are quietly turning their back on the Democrats, but many are afraid to speak out about it.

“There’s all kinds of dirty names for Trump supporters,” Lee said. “In secret, a lot of people tell me, yeah, I support Trump. But they’re scared, and I don’t blame them.”

City’s MAGA supporters emerge

Some of Trump’s “hidden” supporters have decided to emerge in the wake of his sweeping victory. A group of young Republicans in New York said its membership has surged.

“It’s been very busy. We’ve seen tremendous growth. We recently hit 1,500 members. We were at 1,200 prior to the election. We’re really excited about that,” said Nathan Gerber, vice president of the New York Young Republican Club.

Gerber said that MAGA supporters are no longer worried about wearing their iconic red caps in public.

“This restriction on discourse, this need to hide one’s thought is, I think, starting to loosen, and that’s great for everyone. It allows us to have a free exchange of ideas and for those ideas to compete in the marketplace and for the best idea to win,” he said.

‘A harbinger of something even bigger?’

Experts suggest these local shifts have greater implications for the defining identities of the major parties.

Professor Mollenkopf said he believes it is still “far too soon to say there’s a realignment and somehow the Republican Party is going to be a multi-class, multi-racial party.”

He said the key question is the lesson the Democratic Party learns from this loss, and whether it can “adapt to what the American people have signaled they need.”

Professor Lien said, “We have variations in terms of degree of newness and diversity of this Trump country. For new urban areas shifting red, this could be a harbinger of something even bigger coming.”