President Biden’s re-election campaign is putting on a look of confidence as staffers claim there is more than one path to victory. Allegedly, the campaign is expanding its focus on a couple of red states – Texas and Florida.
Talk about big aspirations. Team Biden predicts a tough, close race.
The campaign is targeting a few swing states, as we have seen with Biden’s travel schedule. He is on the campaign trail this week, coming off a weekend of celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and roasting Republicans, Trump, and Trump voters at the annual Gridiron Club dinner.
“From day one, the Biden-Harris campaign has firmly believed this race will be won on the ground across key states that are core to our multiple pathways to 270. As we enter the general election, we have multiple clear paths to victory through a number of critical swing states,” Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden-Harris 2024 campaign manager, wrote in a memo.
Biden is campaigning in Nevada today, then in Arizona. Later this week he will be in Texas. He is going to Dallas and Houston because that is where Democrats go to raise money in Texas. (It’s where Republicans go, too.)
The campaign memo points to recent polling. In Florida,Trump led Biden by 6 points – 48% to 42% in a St. Pete Polls survey taken on March 11-13. A poll taken by Florida Atlantic University Political Communication and Public Opinion Research Lab found that Trump leads Biden by 9 points – 51% to 42% in Texas. That poll was taken Feb 29-March 3.
“Now at the end of the day, we know this is going to be a very tough, close race,” a Biden-Harris 2024 campaign official told reporters on a conference call Monday. “That’s why we’re investing in multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes, including in the southeastern battleground states.”
The official stressed “early outreach” to voters and “mobilizing our diverse coalition.” Keep in mind that Biden’s “diverse coalition” has evaporated. Polling is horrible for Biden. Voters are not happy with a Biden-Trump rematch. Biden’s policies have not put Americans in a good place. 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Biden is hemorrhaging black voters, Hispanic voters, and young voters, for example.
Team Biden wants to project an air of determination to win over states that Biden lost in 2020. Every state is on the table. Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden-Harris 2024 campaign manager, said the Biden campaign staff “aren’t taking any state or any vote for granted and are building strong teams to shore up important building block states to 270 such as Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Virginia.”
Realistically, the campaign knows that victory will come with wins in the same battleground states that Biden won in 2020. Rodriguez singled out three key regions – Blue Wall states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), western battleground states (Nevada and Arizona), and southern states (Georgia and North Carolina.)
Trump is up over Biden in all the swing states at this point.
This week’s objective with Biden’s campaign travel to three states is to raise money.
Biden’s speech tomorrow in Phoenix will be on his domestic agenda, which is very unpopular with voters. From there he will fly to Texas for two campaign fundraising receptions in Dallas. Then he goes to Houston on Thursday for another fundraising reception.
Biden is going to boast about creating new jobs in Nevada and Arizona during his term in office. The problem is that Biden touts 13 million new jobs created, a number that has been repeatedly debunked. Most of those jobs are ones that workers came back to when the pandemic ebbed. Biden is trying to rewrite history by claiming he is the jobs creator, not Donald Trump. The truth is that the Trump administration helped create a record level of jobs, and unemployment was at all-time lows. All demographics benefitted from the Trump economy before the pandemic hit. The opposite is true with Biden’s policies. Everyone is hit by high inflation and cost of living expenses.
Rodriguez delivers some happy talk as she notes that Biden is doing small events instead of concentrating on big rallies. She says it is because Biden likes to shake hands and talk to people. We know the truth. Biden isn’t able to do big events regularly. He doesn’t have it in him anymore. We should get used to seeing the president standing on a private home’s front porch in the rain and talking to a handful of supporters. On his last trip to Michigan, where the porch event happened, he had to be led by handlers into a building because he was confused. It is disturbing, to say the least, to see the leader of the free world unable to walk down a sidewalk and go through a door on his own.
Are there enough anti-Trump Republicans and independents to hand victory to Biden in November? That remains to be seen. Trump’s legal battles will play a part in how some voters make their decisions. Haley voters want outreach from the Trump campaign to court their votes. Others will be loyal to the Republican candidate for the sake of a Republican Party win.
It’s going to be an interesting 7 1/2 months.