Trump says he'll win LI, upstate and contends NYS is still in play

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday asserted that he will win Long Island and upstate New York by a "landslide" on Election Day and argued that the state still remains in play.

Trump’s assessment comes despite the latest Siena College poll of state voters showing the president trailing former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden by 32 percentage points.

"Upstate and on Long Island, I’m going to win in a landslide," Trump said when asked about his prospects of flipping New York during an appearance on the Fox News morning show "Fox and Friends."

Trump, a native New Yorker who has since changed his primary residence status to Florida, lost New York to Democrat Hillary Clinton by 22% of the vote in 2016.

Trump won Suffolk County in 2016 by 50,000 votes — his largest plurality in the state. Clinton won Nassau by 31,000 votes.

Overall, Trump won Long Island garnering 48.6% of the 1.24 million votes cast in Nassau and Suffolk, according to election data.

New York State has not been won by a Republican presidential nominee since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

For months Trump, touting the support of several New York police unions, has argued the state is in play, but a poll released by Siena College on Oct. 2 found Biden leading Trump throughout the state.

The poll of 504 likely voters, conducted between showed Biden leading by 60 points in New York City, 20 points upstate and 14 points in the downstate suburbs.

The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

"Try as he may, it doesn’t seem likely that Trump can be competitive in his former home state, much less win it. Campaign resources might be better spent in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin," said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg.

Trump on Tuesday continued to take aim at the state’s Democratic leadership.

"It’s horrible what they’ve done in New York," Trump said. "It’s rotten to the core."