Trump’s New York Surge Driven By Asians, Orthodox Jews, and Other Key Groups

This summer, now President-elect Donald Trump said he would win New York, a state that hasn’t gone to a Republican presidential candidate in a general election since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Although Trump fell short of his goal, the 43 percent vote share he secured in New York in 2024 not only beat his performances in 2016 and 2020, but it is also the best showing for a Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

Trump’s Rainbow Coalition in New York

Now, those topline numbers don’t do justice to what Trump achieved in the Empire State. New York, and especially New York City’s outer boroughs and suburbs, is more ethnically and racially diverse today than in 1988. (Over 200 languages are spoken in the city.)

Trump owes his gains in New York on Tuesday not just to robust support from stalwart Republicans, such as rural whites and suburban white Catholics, but also to growing support in New York City from Orthodox Jews, Chinese and Korean Americans, and immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

Within New York City’s five boroughs, support for the president-elect was the strongest in heavily Italian, Russian, and Orthodox Jewish areas.

• Trump won 85 percent of the vote in the 48th State Assembly District, which covers predominantly Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn’s Borough Park and Midwood. In some electoral districts, Trump received close to 100 percent of the vote.
• Trump also handily won Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay, garnering 75 percent of the vote in these neighborhoods home to Russian Jews, who lean right despite being less religious, as well as substantial Ukrainian and Uzbek populations.
• Along Staten Island’s southern rim, an ethnic Italian stronghold, Trump received as much as 86 percent of the vote at the electoral district level.

Statewide, Trump’s biggest gains percentage-wise at the county level were in the Bronx, which saw a double-digit increase in support for the businessman-turned-politician.

In the Bronx, the greatest support for Trump came in Italian neighborhoods like Pelham Bay, which is also home to a growing middle-class Hispanic population. Trump also saw his vote share double in some predominantly Hispanic parts of the Bronx, albeit from a single-digit base. The shift, however, reflects how Trump has eroded the Democratic base with his iconoclastic politics.

Support for Trump also rose by 10 percent in the borough of Queens, one of the most diverse places on earth. Unsurprisingly, Trump swept the white ethnic enclaves of Maspeth and Whitestone, as well as Orthodox and Bukharan Jewish areas like Forest Hills and Kew Gardens, and predominantly Greek pockets of Astoria.

He also won or did very well in heavily Chinese and Korean neighborhoods in eastern Queens that have seen a red wave in recent election cycles due to concerns over rising crime, selective public high school admissions, and the migrant crisis.

It’s worth noting that although Trump dominated Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods of Brooklyn, in other areas home to more secular Jewish populations, like Borough Park and Park Slope, Trump won as little as two percent of the vote.

A similar dynamic in terms of ethnicity and religiosity has played out in Jewish populations in suburban Nassau County, where Orthodox and Iranian Jews vote Republican at a greater rate than Reform and Ashkenazi Jews. The Jewish vote in New York is far from monolithic.

Big Gains Statewide

A statewide electoral map of New York resembles that of the country as a whole. It’s a sea of red. The concentrations of blue are, at least in terms of the popular vote, where they matter the most: urban, population-dense areas and adjacent suburbs.

Yet alongside Trump gains in New York City proper, there was also a substantive Trump wave in nearby suburbs. Trump won both Nassau and Suffolk counties, where support for him grew by five percent.

The two counties form the region of Long Island, where white Catholics are reliable Republican voters. In pre-election polls, the area’s Jewish population also leaned toward Trump, breaking with historical precedent.

Long Island is home to many serving and retired New York City police officers, who lean right politically. However, the region is becoming increasingly diverse, with the influx of first- and second-generation South and East Asian immigrants.

Nassau County is not only one of the richest in the U.S., it’s also one of the safest. However, crime, the migrant crisis, and taxes are major issues for its residents. That has shifted its politics rightward.

The Limits of the Trump Wave

So is New York on the verge of becoming a red state? That’s very unlikely, as Tuesday’s other election races show.

A pro-abortion statewide ballot measure, Proposal Number 1, passed with 62 percent of the vote. And while the Nassau County vote went to Trump in the presidential race, the Democrats won both of its congressional seats, though the incumbent Rep. Tom Suozzi’s victory was by a much closer margin than expected. The junior Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand also won re-election, albeit by seven fewer points than in 2018.

The drivers of Trump’s rise have hurt Democrats down ballot, but winning candidates like Suozzi have adjusted by moving rightward on crime and immigration.

Future cycles may see Republicans become more competitive in Asian neighborhoods, as reflected in this cycle and in 2022, which saw a red wave in New York City and its suburbs. The Democratic Party in New York cannot rely on non-whites and non-Christians as guaranteed votes.

Republicans may have a shot in the gubernatorial race in 2026, especially if the unpopular Gov. Kathy Hochul is the Democratic nominee and cost of living and quality of life remain major issues.

In New York and nationwide, the Trump effect has pushed electoral politics into uncharted territory. Yet Democrats can blunt Republican momentum by moving more toward the center, if not the right. Trump’s longer-term impact in New York may be more on policy than on electoral politics.