NEW YORK — On a neat block in the northwest corner of Staten Island, symbols of this borough’s patriotism and unlikely affection for its fallen son dotted the street: American flags and the occasional sign for Michael G. Grimm.
Grimm, who is trying to complete an implausible circle from congressman to felon and back to Congress, has found wide support here, and may well upset the incumbent, Rep. Dan Donovan, in the June 26 Republican primary.
But as much as Staten Islanders appear to love Grimm, their feelings for the country’s top Republican, President Donald Trump, would seem comparable — possibly complicating matters in the 11th Congressional District race.
This week, Trump used Twitter to wade into the contest, endorsing Donovan’s candidacy. In one post, Trump said there was “no one better to represent the people of N.Y. and Staten Island (a place I know very well) than @RepDanDonovan.”
Grimm was convicted of felony tax fraud, which led to a federal prison stay of several months. Prosecutors said he underreported wages and revenue at his Manhattan restaurant and filed false tax documents.
Some Republican strategists fear that if Grimm were to defeat Donovan, it could pave the way for a Democrat to win the general election in November, when Democratic turnout is expected to be heavy.
There is little doubt that Staten Island, New York City’s most conservative borough, is Trump country, and what the president decrees can trickle down to kitchen tables and backyard barbecues. For many, Trump and Grimm represent a strange political fusion. At a recent campaign event for Grimm, supporters held aloft signs emblazoned with “Grimm” on one side and “Trump” on the other.
But after the president’s tweets Wednesday, a swing through some of Staten Island’s suburban enclaves — communities like Bulls Head, Graniteville and Todt Hill — found that, despite Trump’s endorsement of Donovan, many voters remained committed to Grimm, 48, a former FBI agent and Marine who was elected to Congress in 2010. Indeed, an unofficial survey suggested that “Michael Grimm” lawn signs outnumbered those for Donovan by 20-to-1.
“It should be up to the voters to decide,” Mary Ann Delfino, 73, a retired bank teller, said of Trump’s effort to persuade the electorate. “It’s not for him.”
Delfino, who voted for Trump in 2016, briefly stopped her precision-pruning of her Japanese holly. “People make mistakes and go to jail and come out better for it,” she said.
Freddy Perez, a registered Republican and auto mechanic, recently pressed a “Michael Grimm” sign into his postage-stamp front lawn, right next to a diminutive statue of the Virgin Mary. “I think people will ignore Trump’s tweets on this,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot of talk on the island that Grimm is going to win by a landslide.”
Like others, Perez cited Grimm’s work on behalf of victims of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when he toted bottles of bleach to homeowners struggling with mold outbreaks and trays of sandwiches to weary cleanup crews.
“He did a lot for the island,” Perez, 56, said. “When we needed him, he was there for us.”
In recent months, both the Grimm and Donovan campaigns have gone out of their way to ingratiate themselves with Trump, who won Staten Island with 56 percent of the vote in 2016.
In April, Donovan, a former Staten Island district attorney, said he would introduce a bill to undo an obscure Postal Service regulation that banned photographs of the president and vice president from its offices.
Similarly, Grimm has showered Trump with compliments on the campaign trail, including praising his physique. And he has drawn a connection between his own prosecution for tax fraud and the “witch hunt” into possible collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.
Not every Republican in the district, which also includes a portion of South Brooklyn, is enthralled with Trump, of course. And the primary contest between the two Republicans has grown so heated that it has divided some families. Andrew Mercereau, a 34-year-old electrician, said the presidential tweets did not budge his views, since he “always thought Trump was an idiot, even before he became president.”
A fourth-generation Staten Islander, Mercereau plans to vote for Donovan in the June 26 primary, recalling the way the congressman’s office helped his family during a recent crisis. But Mercereau's father was leaning toward Grimm, he said.
To the extent that undecided voters look to Trump’s social-media posts for guidance, they might not realize that some of the information was incorrect. In one tweet, the president said Donovan had “voted for Tax Cuts and is helping me to Make America Great Again.”
But Donovan was actually one of a dozen Republican congressmen who voted against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Richard Born, a professor of political science at Vassar College, said the error might not matter. “Not many people pay attention any longer because Trump is averaging six to seven falsehoods a day,” he said.
Born said that Republican leaders rightly fear that the Democratic challenger would make hay of Grimm’s criminal history.
“Donovan has a 50-50 chance of holding the seat for the Republicans,” he said, “but Grimm, as a convicted felon, would give it away to the Democrats.”
For now, all eyes are on the primary. Grimm seems intent on ignoring Trump’s endorsement of Donovan; on Saturday, his campaign will air an ad highlighting instances where Donovan disagreed with the president.
The opening line seems a direct rebuke to Trump’s tweet: “Every time it mattered, Dan Donovan voted against Donald Trump.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.