Check Out the Brooklyn Ties of Presidential Front-Runners Clinton, Trump and Sanders

The likelihood that a candidate with New York links will take the Oval Office in November is becoming ever more possible, with Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump each drawing a significant amount of support and each having connections to the city.

Check out the Brooklyn relationships of these three presidential hopefuls.

Donald Trump has strong development ties to Brooklyn.

Donald Trump, while raised in Jamaica Estates, Queens, can credit much of his and his family’s fortune to Brooklyn. The Donald’s father, Fred Trump, built much of his real estate empire in the southern bits of the borough, creating more than 27,000 apartment buildings in working-class areas ranging from Flatbush, Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay down to Coney Island and Brighton Beach, as well as in Jamaica Estates.

Indeed, as real estate moguls, the Trumps have truly transformed Kings County’s landscape, creating housing for an immense number of Brooklynites over the years.

In addition to Fred Trump’s massive impact on southern Brooklyn, Donald’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is known for his development company Kushner Properties, which is in the process of outfitting and leasing the huge Dumbo Heights office complex created from six former Jehovah’s Witnesses buildings Kushner and partners purchased for $375 million in 2013.

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Bernie Sanders’ Brooklyn bonafides go beyond his outer-borough accent.

As for Bernie, his Brooklyn upbringing is evidenced by everything from his speech to his education. The self-proclaimed democratic socialist was brought up in Midwood — in a prewar apartment building at 1525 East 26th Street, Apartment 2C. He attended the neighborhood’s P.S. 197, a nondescript public elementary school that boasts a slew of prominent alumni, including Senator Charles Schumer and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

For high school, Sanders attended the equally ordinary public institution of James Madison High School — which also graduated Schumer and Ginsburg, as well as four Nobel Prize winners, various acclaimed musicians, authors, athletes and TV personalities, including Judge Judy.

Before transferring to the University of Chicago to complete his degree, Sanders spent a year at Brooklyn College and rented a room on East 21st Street from a high school Latin teacher, according to the New York Times.

Despite being absent from the borough’s politics for most of the past half-century, Sanders returned home to Midwood last week for an interview with CBS.

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Hillary Clinton’s HQ is right here in BK.

Hillary Clinton — while the only one of our three front-runners not born in the boroughs — is also the only one of the three candidates who has politically represented New York. In 2000, Hillary became New York’s first-ever female senator. As well, she’s based her campaign headquarters in Brooklyn Heights, on the 11th floor of 1 Pierrepont Plaza.

Clinton visited Montague Street in May. The former First Lady and hubby Bill are more than politically courting the borough — they also like the pizza, as evidenced by a 2012 visit to Bushwick’s Roberta’s.

All in all, it seems a decent bet that Brooklyn will be well represented in the election this November. At the very least, with Chris Christie out, Jersey can fuhgeddaboudit.

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