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Donald Trump is reportedly fixated on hosting a rally at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden arena, despite the fact that most political pundits believe the Empire State and even Trump’s hometown of New York City are squarely in the blue column stand for 2024.

“I am going to fill the Garden,” he is said to have said boastfully in recent days to a confidante, who spoke anonymously to The stronghold.

The Trump ally added that the Republican “has been obsessed with this for at least a year. This is his campaign. So it happens.”

“As President Trump has said, he will be a president for all Americans, including those in traditionally blue states that Kamala Harris and Democrats have left behind,” RNC spokesperson Anna Kelly said. The independent via email. “Kamala Harris’ dangerously liberal policies have failed Americans across the country — from the Bronx to Coachella and Aurora — and that’s why President Trump is bringing his America First message and vision for hardworking families straight to their doorsteps .”

The campaign plans to host a rally at the Garden on Oct. 27, less than two weeks before Election Day, even though Trump lost New York by more than 20 points in the previous two presidential elections, with the most recent polls showing that it’s probably his turn. another thump.

So why bother going big in a state that hasn’t gone Republican since Reagan? There are a few plausible reasons.

You could just be for hometown pride.

Despite Trump changing his legal residency to Florida in 2020, he was born in New York City and still derives some of his political appeal from his (often exaggerated) career as a New York real estate developer.

Another could be a combination of that pride and the former president’s penchant for doing things people say he can’t do.

“We just rented Madison Square Garden,” Trump said with obvious joy at a rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania, last week. “We’re going to make a play for New York.”

“When I said to some people in Washington, ‘I’m going to New York, we’re going to make a campaign speech,’ they said, ‘What do you mean, New York? You can never do that – no one can win. Republicans can’t win,” Trump added at a rally last month in Long Island, New York. “I said, ‘I can win New York, and we can win New York.’ We are going to win.”

A triumphant MSG spectacle could also replace another memory Trump has in the arena. During a 2019 appearance at an Ultimate Fighting Championship bout, the then-president was reportedly showered with boos and negative signals, and Trump is known for clinging to past slights.

Performing in a state can have other benefits besides winning it.

Trump’s presence in New York could help Republicans in the presidential races, or draw attention to signature issues, such as the former president using a recent rally in sapphire-blue California to target his Golden State rival on the campaign trail, Kamala Harris to fall. .

Finally, from the man whose campaign got you the $399 gold “Never Surrender” high-top sneakers and a $100,000 bejeweled “Victory” watch, the New York rally might just be a way to raise some much-needed campaign cash, with the Harris campaign moving to more than $1 billion in fundraising faster than any other in US history.

The Trump campaign is selling an “Ultra MAGA Experience” for rally attendees that will cost nearly $1 million, though virtually no details have been provided about what the experience will entail.

Whatever it means to go Ultra MAGA, the campaign certainly hopes to fill the arena for Trump’s big declaration, despite attempts by online pranksters to reserve tickets and then be a no-show.