Presidential elections don’t offer extra credit. As we all know, it’s 270 to win. Hitting 292 or 336 electoral votes doesn’t get a candidate more executive power or a bigger White House.
That’s why Barack Obama’s campaign opted against seriously contesting Georgia in 2012, even as his team saw the demographics of the state changing. Other states, like Colorado and Virginia, presented an easier way to get to that magic 270. It’s the same calculation that Hillary Clinton made four years later, as she focused on Florida, Ohio and other traditional swing states (with less success).
The goal is not to rack up the most electoral votes but to find the path of least resistance.
Yet there are emerging signs that Joe Biden is exploring an expanded map, with several more possible paths to victory, than either of the most recent Democratic nominees.
“I am certain that states will be battleground states that haven’t been battleground states before,” Biden’s campaign manager, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, told alumni of Obama’s administration and campaigns during a fundraiser this month, saying she was particularly “bullish” on Arizona and viewed Florida as in play.
Of course, campaign managers often suggest broader opportunities for their candidates, both to build enthusiasm among their supporters and to head-fake their opponents into stretching their resources. (Remember when Clinton “made a play” for Utah?)
But the effects of long-running demographic shifts and the more immediate effect of the coronavirus pandemic could mean that O’Malley Dillon’s remarks end up being more than just standard political bluster.
Democratic post-traumatic election disorder has kept much of the focus on the three Rust Belt states that eluded the party in 2016: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
But in 2020, the road to the White House may run through the West, the Sun Belt or even the South.
For years, the Democratic Party has grown more female, younger and more diverse. The Trump presidency exacerbated those trends, pushing more women, suburban voters and college-educated voters into the arms of Democrats. Already, we’ve seen those shifts play out with Democrats winning seats in state legislatures, governors’ mansions and Congress in states like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Then you add the coronavirus to the electoral mix.
Over the weekend, Doug Sosnik, Bill Clinton’s White House political director, suggested that the economic and health effects of the virus could strengthen Biden’s hand in Michigan and Pennsylvania — places where Democrats have already racked up victories during the Trump era.
In both states, more than a quarter of the workforce has filed for unemployment and the death counts are some of the highest in the country. Yet their governors, both Democrats, each have a 72% approval rating for their handling of the virus, and polling shows Biden with a broad lead in the presidential race.
Wisconsin, Sosnik says, isn’t quite as favorable to Biden. But that may not matter, if Biden can expand the number of states where he has a real shot. He could reach 270, for example, by holding onto the states Clinton won and doing one of the following:
— winning back Michigan and Pennsylvania, and adding traditionally red Arizona.
— winning back Michigan, and adding Arizona and North Carolina.
— following a Southern strategy, winning North Carolina and recapturing the most notorious state on the electoral map, a place Democrats thought was lost but now believe could be back in play — Florida.
And we’re not even talking about places like Texas and Georgia, which remain harder lifts for Democrats even as they trend closer to purple. Recent polls have shown both states in a dead heat.
Political strategists warn that there are months to go before Election Day. To say the political environment remains fluid is an understatement, as the coronavirus deaths and unemployment checks continue to mount.
“If the election was held now, it’s an expanded map for Biden,” said Michael Halle, Hillary Clinton’s former battleground state director and a senior adviser to Pete Buttigieg. “But the polling numbers right now have to be taken somewhat with a grain of salt because we’re still a long way from Election Day. A lot can change.”
