Queens sees significant rightward shift as Trump support surges in 2024 election

Queens County may have voted overwhelmingly in support of Kamala Harris during the recent presidential election, but the county took a major shift to the right compared to four years ago.

Trump generated 37.3 % of the vote in Queens on Nov. 5 compared to just 26.8 % in 2020 when he faced Joe Biden, according to preliminary Board of Elections results. His success this year was also far higher than in 2016 when he faced Hillary Clinton– when he only brought in a meager 21.6 % of the vote.

But Trump’s success was not just about percentages. More voters in Queens stuffed the ballot box with Trump’s name this year than in the past, with the number of Trump votes jumping by almost 100,000 since the 2016 election. In 2024, he racked up 248,024 votes, up from 212,665 votes in 2020 and 149,341 in 2016.

Many Republicans argue that Trump’s strong performance in the borough indicated that local residents– much like the rest of the nation– placed a heavy focus on issues such as public safety, immigration, and their economic well-being. Also, some were critical of Harris’ focus on social issues.

Vickie Paladino, a Republican Council Member who represents the 19th District in northeast Queens, believes Trump’s gains in the county suggest that Republicans and moderate Democrats can make gains in the City Council.

Paladino, whose district is one of the more conservative districts in Queens and includes parts of Whitestone, Bayside, College Point and Flushing, said she was not surprised by the rightward shift in Queens, blaming the shift on the “far-left” faction of the Democratic party in New York City. She added Democrats now have tough decisions ahead of future election cycles and encouraged New York Democrats to abandon “woke” politics.

“We’ve always been a liberal place, but Democrats took a hard-left turn under DeBlasio and never looked back. Since then, we’ve been ruled by a miserable cadre of far-left progressives who, to be frank, have run New York into the ground. Within ten years, we went from a safe, clean, orderly, and prosperous city to a basket case,” Paladino said in a statement.

Some Democrats believe Harris’ lackluster results stemmed from the party not addressing the economy and for not working hard enough to secure the support of minority groups.

Democratic Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas, who represents Assembly District 34, which includes portions of Jackson Heights, Corona, and Elmhurst, said Queens moved to the right because Democrats had taken Latino and Asian voters for granted. In the recent election, Trump flipped several election districts in the predominately Latino areas of González-Rojas’s constituency.

“For too long, the Democratic Party has taken Latino and Asian voters for granted,” González-Rojas said in a statement. “We already know the issues Latinos care about and that is pocketbook issues. But we cannot allow what the Republicans have done to overshadow what we did not do.”

“Most Latinos are not transphobic or anti-immigrant. Data shows that immigration was not their primary issue. It was the economy. So it is time for our state to increase revenue by taxing the rich to address the basic needs of Latino and Asian voters, including affordable housing, food prices, childcare access and more. We have more work to do and I’m ready to push our state to do it.”

Trump flipped three of Queens County’s 18 Assembly Districts in the 2024 election, further reflecting a shift to the right in Queens in 2024. Biden, on the other hand, won the popular vote in each of the 18 assembly districts four years ago.

Trump comfortably took Assembly District 23, comprising the neighborhoods of Broad Channel, Howard Beach, Ozone Park and the Rockaways, winning 25,442 votes to Harris’s 18,942 after losing the district to Biden four years ago by more than 2,000 votes.

Voters in Assembly District 27, which includes parts of Kew Gardens, College Point, Whitestone and Beechhurst, also pivoted to the right in 2024, with 19,661 people voting for Trump compared to 16,491 people voting for Harris. Biden beat Trump by more than 10,000 votes in the district four years ago.

Trump also took Assembly District 40, including parts of Whitestone, Flushing, Murray Hill and College Point, although only marginally. Trump won the district by 12,485 votes to Harris’s 11,613, a margin of 873 votes. Biden, meanwhile, won the district by more than 7,000 votes four years ago.

The President-elect also turned several blue neighborhoods purple, with Harris’s margin of victory shrinking considerably in districts that Biden won comfortably in 2020. For example, Trump only lost Assembly District 38 by 4,036 votes in the recent election. In 2020, he lost the district, which includes parts of Ridgewood, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill and Glendale, by roughly 16,000 votes.

Similarly, Trump closed the gap in Assembly District 25, including parts of Flushing, Bayside, Fresh Meadows and Douglaston, to a margin of just 227 votes. He lost the district by just shy of 10,000 votes four years ago.

The margin even narrowed in some of Queens County’s most reliably blue districts.

Trump lost Assembly District 32, including parts of Jamaica, South Ozone Park and Rochdale, by a margin of 38,881 votes against Biden in 2020. In 2024, that margin was slashed to 23,825 votes.

The margin also shrunk in Assembly District 36, a Democratic stronghold in western Queens, including parts of Jackson Heights and Astoria, although the fall was less stark than in other districts, falling from 26,902 to 21,804.

Trump also made gains in Assembly District 37, another Democratic stronghold consisting of neighborhoods such as Long Island City, Maspeth and Sunnyside, more than halving the margin from a 29,708-vote majority four years ago to 13,761-majority this year.

Trump flipped several election districts within AD 37, particularly those in the Maspeth area.

For example, Trump turned a 119-vote defeat in 2020 into a 140-vote victory in 2024 in Election District 48 in southern Maspeth, a district that averaged roughly 1,000 votes in each of the two elections. He also flipped the adjacent Election District 51 from a 32-vote defeat four years ago to a 160-vote victory this year.

Trump made huge inroads in election districts with a significant Latino population, including parts of Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona – areas covered by Assembly Districts 34, 35 and 39. Much of the area is located along or near the Roosevelt Avenue Corridor, which has seen growing dissatisfaction among residents due to a rise in crime and prostitution along the avenue, culminating in a number of protests aimed at elected Democrats.

Several election districts within AD 39 flipped from Blue to Red, including Election District 33, which moved from a 295-vote Biden majority in 2020 to a 73-vote Trump majority in 2024.

Voters near the Elmhurst-Corona border, covered by AD 34’s 56th Election District, produced one of the most dramatic shifts in the county, with the district flipping from a 401-vote Biden majority in 2020 to a 67-vote Trump majority in 2024. Only 800 people voted in the district four years ago, while just 660 people voted there this year.

Long line of voters waiting to cast their ballot at an election site in Queens on election day. Photo by Ramy Mahmoud

Trump also produced a seismic shift in AD 35’s 18th Election District, which is located in close proximity to the Roosevelt Avenue Corridor. The President-elect won the district by 71 votes in 2024 after losing by 284 votes four years ago. Only 500 people voted in the district four years ago, while only 400 people voted there this year.

He also flipped the adjacent Election District 30, flipping it from a 403-vote Biden majority to a 26-vote Republican majority.

Harris retained majorities in other districts located on Roosevelt Avenue or in the surrounding area, but only barely. In Election District 10, which traverses Roosevelt Avenue from 103rd Street to Junction Boulevard, Harris lost a net total of 371 votes, falling from a 384-vote majority in 2020 to a 13-vote majority in 2024.

Trump lost Election District 31, which runs from 102nd Street to 111th Street, by a single vote in 2024 after losing the district by 345 votes in 2020.

State Sen. Jessica Ramos, representing parts of Elmhurst, Corona and Jackson Heights in Senate District 13, said voters had responded to the Democratic Party’s failure to deliver on “bread-and-butter issues” and said the party will be having tough conversations about how to move forward.

“The frustrations of Latino voters, Asian voters and even perhaps some Black voters, is the Democratic Party’s inability to deliver on bread-and-butter issues,” Ramos said. “They feel like they work and work and work and it doesn’t really bear fruit. They came to this country to buy a house and provide for their families and well, that’s getting harder every year. We need to have some tough conversations as a party about how we can be more responsive.”

Meanwhile, in areas that already voted for Trump in 2020, the chasm widened significantly.

Trump extended his lead in Whitestone’s Election District 47, more than doubling his 157-vote majority in 2020 to a 388-vote majority this year. He lost the neighboring Election District 38 by seven votes against Biden four years ago but completely flipped the district this time around, winning by a 180-vote majority.

Asian-American voters in Flushing appear to have shifted from Biden to Trump over the past four years, with numerous election districts in Flushing shifting from Biden majorities in 2020 to Trump majorities in 2024. Trump also closed the gap significantly in Flushing election districts, which he did not win. The data suggests a shift to the right among Asian-Americans, reflecting a nationwide trend that has been ongoing since 2012 when Asian-American support for the Democrats reached its peak.

Paladino blamed the county-wide shift on “far-left” Democratic policies and believes there is no reason why Republicans and moderate Democrats can’t control at least 35 % of seats in the City Council based on the election results.

“Based on what we see, there’s no reason why we can’t hold 16-17 council seats citywide. And there’s certainly no reason for any currently elected Democrat to be completely in thrall to the progressive caucus who are steering their party (and our city) into a ditch,” Paladino said in a statement.

“Republicans must offer candidates and resources to activate these people in local elections.”

She also believes that Democrats face difficult decisions in the coming years and accused Democrats of ignoring the significance of rising crime in New York City, citing reports of rising shoplifting, moped robberies and assaults. She also blamed an increasing number of migrant hotels, a rise in antisemitism and “campus riots” for the shift to the right.

“Democrats have some very tough decisions ahead of them. They’d be well advised to completely jettison the woke progressive lunatics that steered their party into a ditch and return to a more pragmatic classical liberalism that has served them well in the past.

“People are fed up. And they voted accordingly.”