Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was apparently scheduled to make a campaign stop in Ridgewood, but the Queens native now has other plans.
The Queens Chronicle reported on Tuesday night that the celebrity billionaire was set to hold an event in Ridgewood on Thursday evening. Trump was scheduled to meet at the office of the Republican Leadership Initiative to speak about Latino and African-American outreach.
Though sources with the Republican Party initially confirmed to QNS on Tuesday night that Trump was slated to make an appearance in Ridgewood, a representative of the Queens County GOP told us Wednesday morning that the event was cancelled.
Trump — whose campaign website indicates he will make an appearance in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Thursday afternoon — will instead hold an event at Trump Tower in Manhattan rather than come to Queens, according to the Chronicle.
Trump, of course, has roots in Queens; he was raised in Jamaica Estates and attended the Kew Forest School on the Forest Hills/Kew Gardens border. The real estate magnate got into the family business with the help of his father, Fred, and over the decades expanded his organization into casinos and other ventures with varying degrees of success.
Trump’s presidential campaign, his first foray into politics, has been defined by controversy from the get-go. He has made numerous offensive statements about immigrants and war veterans, proposed banning Muslims due to recent terrorist attacks, questioned the legitimacy of the upcoming election and asked the Russian government to hack into the campaign of his opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Although Trump won over enough Republican voters to win the nomination, many Republicans have distanced themselves from the campaign. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday had Clinton leading Trump nationally by 12 points; Trump is also trailing in most swing states such as Ohio, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.
