Days before the 2024 election, the main newspaper in Republican nominee Donald Trump's only stronghold in New York, Staten Island, endorsed his Democratic opponent.
"The decision this year is quite simple, the choice quite clear," said an editorial on behalf of the Staten Island Advance and SILive.com. "Donald J. Trump, a former president, has no place in American politics and certainly no place leading the United States of America as its 47th president. We would make this assertion no matter whom he is running against."
The newspaper's endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, whom it described as "the only choice in 2024," offered an enthusiastic show of support for the vice president but largely served as a strong reprimand of the former president. It described Trump as a divisive figure promoting an "out-of-control, disgusting, hate-filled rhetoric" and a "man who belittles women," among other things.
The article made a direct appeal to Staten Island voters, a majority of whom support Trump in his bid for the White House. While New York City, the former president's hometown, remains solidly blue and is expected to vote for Harris on November 5, Staten Island is an exception, as it favored Trump in the past two election cycles.
In 2020, SILive.com reported, Trump received 110,094 votes on Staten Island against Joe Biden's 67,223. In 2016, ABC7 NY reported, Trump received 57 percent of the vote on Staten Island against Hillary Clinton's 40 percent. Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx overwhelmingly voted for Biden four years ago and for Clinton in 2016.
At the state level, Biden won New York with 61 percent of the vote against Trump's 38 percent in 2020, while Clinton won it with 59 percent of the vote against Trump's 37 percent in 2016.
Newsweek contacted the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment by email outside normal working hours.
Staten Island's feelings toward Trump have hardly changed during the Biden administration. SILive.com reported that hundreds of people turned out for the Staten Island GOP's Triumph rally on Saturday to show support for Trump's candidacy.
"We understand a significant portion of conservative-leaning Staten Island will disagree, some vehemently, in support of her opponent," the Staten Island Advance/SILive.com's editorial said, before listing reasons that Harris should be the next U.S. president.
"Kamala Harris sees America's future as bright and optimistic, full of promise of what an America pulling together can be. Donald Trump sees America as a dark place, a place beset with soul-crushing, mind-bending issues—issues he claims only he can fix," the article said.
"In this election, Kamala Harris is the only hope to save America from a continuation of the chaos we saw in Trump's first four years, and indeed, in the four years that followed as Trump continued to sow hatred and divisiveness," the editorial continued, adding, "If our goal is a better, kinder America, an America where we are not afraid to be ourselves, Kamala Harris is that alternative."
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