Democrats tell Biden it’s time to go big
With President Donald Trump’s poll numbers sliding in traditional battlegrounds as well as conservative-leaning states, and money pouring into Democratic campaigns, Joe Biden is facing rising pressure to expand his ambitions, compete aggressively in more states and press his party’s advantage down the ballot.
In a series of phone calls, Democratic lawmakers and party officials have lobbied Biden and his top aides to seize what they believe could be a singular opportunity not only to defeat Trump but also to rout him and discredit what they believe is his dangerous style of racial demagogy.
This election, the officials argue, offers the provocative possibility of a new path to the presidency through fast-changing states like Georgia and Texas, and a chance to install a generation of lawmakers who can cement Democratic control of Congress and help redraw legislative maps following this year’s census.
Biden’s campaign is so far hewing to a more conservative path. It is focused mostly on a handful of traditional battlegrounds, where it is only now scaling up and naming top aides.
At the moment, Biden is airing TV ads in just six states, all of which Trump won four years ago: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida.
The campaign included perennially close Florida only after some deliberations about whether it was worth the hefty price tag, and when Trump’s struggles with older populations made it clearly competitive, according to Democrats familiar with their discussions.
The campaign’s reluctance to pursue a more expansive strategy owes in part to the calendar: Biden’s aides want to see where the race stands closer to November before they broaden their focus and commit to multimillion-dollar investments, aware that no swing states have been locked up.
Yet they are increasingly bumping up against a party emboldened by an extraordinary convergence of events. Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic, his self-defeating rhetorical eruptions and the soaring liberal enthusiasm — reflected in the social justice protests and Democrats’ unprecedented Senate fundraising — have many officeholders convinced they must act boldly.
Public and private polling shows Trump not only trailing badly in swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin but also running closely with Biden in traditionally conservative bastions like Kansas and Montana.
“Trump’s abominable presidency, especially in the context of the total failure to confront coronavirus, makes Texas very winnable,” said Rep. Filemon Vela, an early Biden supporter. He said he is getting bombarded with pleas from Texas Democrats who are similarly convinced the state could turn blue with a substantial commitment.
Vela, who represents a long stretch of South Texas, said he had repeatedly made his case in recent weeks with Biden’s campaign manager, Jennifer O’malley Dillon. He argued that the former vice president’s strength with Black voters and suburbanites, and his ability to shave the party’s rural losses, gave him the party’s best chance in decades to claim the state’s 38 electoral votes.
Some Democrats remain chastened by 2016 and believe this moment is so turbulent, and Trump so willing to break through political guardrails, that the party should not grow overconfident.
Georgia Democrats are also especially eager for Biden to compete in the state because it has two Senate seats up for grabs this year. More consequential, they argue, 2020 could kick-start a longterm realignment.
“The Sun Belt expansion is what will drive the next 30 years of elections,” said Stacey Abrams, the state’s former House Democratic leader, noting that Georgia has the most Black voters by percentage of any potential swing state.
The pressure on Biden, however, is not coming just from the South.
Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio is pushing the former vice president’s aides to compete in his state, a long-standing political battleground that many Democrats had concluded was out of reach.
No state offers as big a temptation, and potential payoff, as Texas, with its increasingly Democratic, and diverse, urban centers. Beyond its importance in the presidential race, Texas provides House Democrats more pickup opportunities than any other state and the prospect of claiming a majority in the state House and on the state Supreme Court, both of which could prove pivotal for redistricting.
Recent Texas polls show a close race, with neither candidate leading by more than the margin of error.