Michael Grimm, Trump, and the Alabama-West Virginia of New York City

While Trump is all-in for Donovan, Staten Island is still tempted by Grimm. He walks and talks almost exactly like the president. Slick his hair back and buy him a better suit, and the former congressman could double as a member of the first family. In some ways Grimm seems even more authentic than either Eric or Donald Trump Jr.

Grimm enlisted in the Marines, deploying during the First Persian Gulf War. Afterwards he served as an undercover FBI agent. It’s the kind of gritty profile that resonates with the Irish and Italian cops and firefighters on the island. Bit Grimm also has one thing neither Trump sons do—a criminal record.

Also known as U.S. Federal Inmate 83479-053, Grimm pled guilty and was convicted of tax evasion during the middle of his second term in Congress. He spent seven months in prison for failing to report $1 million in earnings and employing undocumented migrants at his Manhattan restaurant, Healthalicious.

Normally, ex-cons don’t make competitive candidates for Congress. But like Don Blankenship who recently finished third in the West Virginia Republican primary, Grimm isn’t letting his prison sentence define his political future. In fact, he has turned it into a campaign pitch.

While the court system considers him a former felon, Grimm told the Washington Post that he was the victim of the Obama-era Department of Justice which “was weaponized for political purposes.” You know, just like the current “Russia witch hunt.” And never mind that guilty plea, Grimm told CNN that Democrats targeted him because he was “the only federally elected Republican in the entire city of New York” and after winning re-election he was “rising like a rocket.”

Conspiratorial, those allegations are obviously unprovable. What Grimm can’t escape is the video tape of him threatening to throw a reporter off the third-floor rotunda of the Cannon House Office building. Grimm lost his temper when he was asked about charges of campaign corruption during an interview before the 2014 State of the Union:

“Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I’ll throw you off this fucking balcony,” Grimm said in tones hushed but not low enough to escape the microphone.

“It’s a valid question,” the reporter replied.

“No, no, you’re not man enough, you’re not man enough. I’ll break you in half. Like a boy,” Grimm shot back doubling down on the threat and also apparently advocating child abuse at the same time.

Either a testament or a condemnation of New York values, the felony and the fighting words haven’t convinced Staten Island to stay its distance from their old congressman. In one of the few polls available, he leads Donovan 47 to 37 percent.

Those numbers are frightening to the president. According to the Cook Political Report, the district “leans Republican” if Donovan gets to compete for his seat during the general election. If Grimm shanks the mild-mannered Republican during the primary, though, Democrats will run against a candidate who has done hard time in federal prison. It’s not exactly ideal.

To keep that from happening, Trump hasn’t endorsed Donovan as much as he has pled with Staten Island not to vote for Grimm. It would be, the president has tweeted, like Alabama all over again. That electorate voted against the incumbent Sen. Luther Strange and then the president ended up endorsing a credibly accused child molester named Judge Roy Moore. It also wasn’t exactly ideal.

So Trump tweeted his endorsement of the incumbent and Trump invited him to fly with him to Long Island on Air Force One. When the plane touched down, the two attended an event on the dangers of the MS-13 gang, a rare moment of absolute agreement between the president and Donovan, Staten Island’s former top prosecutor. On other issues, most notably tax reform, the pair differ.

But the details don’t matter. The numbers do. Even under united Republican government, life hasn’t been exactly enjoyable for Trump. If Democrats gain 23 seats and take back the House, life will quickly become unbearable. That’s why the president is pushing Staten Island to ignore a candidate who walks and talks and acts almost exactly like him.

For the city that never sleeps, polls close at 9:00 P.M. Soon enough, the president will wait and see if his Staten Island supporters choose a candidate more Trumpian than Trump is real.