By james art
CNN
—
Donald Trump begins the final full week of the presidential race on Sunday with a rally in Madison Square Garden, betting on his own performance as he seeks to fill the iconic seat and create a spectacle that will reach TV and phone screens in all seven battleground states. .
The former president returns to his hometown of New York, a deep-blue turf that virtually no Republican expects to win, but where signs of discontent and struggles for state and local Democratic leadership could help threatened GOP incumbents pick up seats in the House of Representatives in the surrounding suburbs.
It’s the latest in a series of Trump visits to blue states that also include a rally in California’s Coachella Valley this month, one in Long Island over the summer and a recent stop for an economic forum in Chicago.
At every stop, in dehumanizing terms, Trump lays the blame for crime and rising migrant numbers at the feet of his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I will save every city in America that has been attacked and conquered,” he said Thursday in Las Vegas.
The event at Madison Square Garden follows a precedent set by past campaigns. The place, including its earlier locations, boasts a rich political history. It has hosted presidents such as Grover Cleveland, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and has welcomed both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions—most recently the GOP confab in 2004. It is also known as the site of the birthday celebration John F. Kennedy Day in 1962, when Marilyn Monroe performed her iconic serenade for the president.
Yet the history of Madison Square Garden is not without controversy. It has hosted many more divisive events, including the infamous “Pro-American Rally” of 1939, a pro-Nazi gathering organized by the German-American Bund and attended by thousands on the eve of World War II. Days later, a Communist Party rally filled the arena. In 1968, George Wallace, the former segregationist governor of Alabama, pushed a message of law and order in a garden speech days before the presidential election, where he won nearly 10 million votes and won five states as a third-party candidate.
For Trump, Sunday’s event means more than just a campaign stop. This is also an important moment for him personally. The former president has long expressed a desire to take the stage at the midtown Manhattan landmark. His name will most likely appear on the same kind of marquee that so often welcomes guests such as Billy Joel, Elton John and other legendary artists.
New York remains a safe blue state, even though Trump has said privately and publicly that he thinks he can win it, a notion his campaigners have acknowledged is far from reality.
“We think we have a chance to win New York for the first time in, well, a long time, many, many decades. And we think there’s a real chance with what’s going on, with the migrants, to take over the city, to take over the whole state, frankly,” he said on Fox News radio. Ronald Reagan in 1984 was the last Republican presidential candidate to carry the Empire State.
It’s also been more than two decades since a Republican won a New York state election — the last being former Gov. George Pataki when he won a third term in 2002.
Still, Republicans expressed some hope that the event could help shore up vulnerable New York GOP lawmakers who are fighting to hold onto their House seats in November. Several of them joined Trump at a televised rally on Saturday organized by New York Rep. Elise Stefanik — the No. 4 Republican in the House — to promote early voting. Some also appeared at Trump’s September event at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum.
However, none of them are on the list of speakers released by the Trump campaign for the Madison Square Garden rally.
Sunday’s rally will also serve as one of Trump’s biggest fundraisers to date, according to multiple sources familiar with the logistics. Donors were offered a series of packages, including VIP suites, tickets to an exclusive “pre-event” at the venue, backstage passes and photo opportunities.
“The Trump campaign is going to make an insane amount of money from this event,” a source familiar with the guest list told CNN.
Dozens of Republican lawmakers, allies, donors and celebrities are expected to attend. The Trump campaign said speakers at the rally will include the former president’s vice president, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, tech mogul Elon Musk, former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., House Speaker Mike Johnson, Stefanik , former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
A number of popular internet celebrities and rappers have endorsed the former president on the campaign trail, many of whom are likely to attend Sunday, a source close to Trump told CNN.
A source close to Trump said there are systems in place to prevent Trump critics from signing up for tickets with no intention of showing up, something some allies have expressed concern about.
Although Trump will not be in one of the seven states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that both campaigns are expected to decide the outcome of the Nov. 5 election, aides to the former president said they expect on Sunday rally to attract extensive media coverage.
“This is New York. It’s the biggest media market in the world,” a campaign adviser told CNN. “It’s the epicenter of everything.”
CNN’s Dania Gainer contributed to this report.