Joe Biden’s Campaign Says They Plan To Compete In Traditionally Red States Like Arizona, Texas, And Georgia

Joe Biden’s campaign is planning to compete with Donald Trump in a trio of traditionally red states, saying in a digital briefing with reporters on Friday they plan to expand the electoral map in November.

As The Hill reported, Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon told reporters that they see Arizona, Texas, and Georgia as potential battlegrounds in November, with Arizona a top target for red states that they could flip blue. While Arizona has been red for the last 20 years, a number of pundits believe that changing demographics make it a potential target for the presumptive Democratic nominee.

O’Malley Dillon said Biden’s campaign will be starting there in an attempt to flip the electoral map, while also competing in other traditionally red states.

“This is something we are very, very focused on,” O’Malley Dillon said.

“We believe there will be an expanded map in 2020. We believe there will be battleground states that have never been battleground states before.”

Georgia and Texas had been seen as more long shots given the demographics, though some recent polls have shown signs of a close race. As The Inquisitr reported, a recent internal Republican poll showed that Biden and Trump were deadlocked in the Peach State, with Biden holding a slim one-point edge over Trump. Another Dallas Morning News/University of Texas at Tyler poll released earlier this month showed Trump and Biden in a tight race in Texas.

While the campaign is looking to turn states that have long been red, there are other long-blue states that Trump turned in 2016 in their sights. Biden’s campaign had already pointed to the Rust Belt states that Trump narrowly won in 2016 as top targets — Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The campaign also identified Iowa, North Carolina, and Florida as other potential states to flip, all ones that Barack Obama had won and Biden now looks to turn blue again.

The former vice president’s campaign said on Friday that these states will take much of their attention.

“We don’t have to win all of these states, but these are core states to our path to victory and represent the bulk of our focus and attention as we think about battleground states,” O’Malley Dillon said.

She added that polling showed Biden ahead in many of these states, including Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona. Those states combined with the more safely blue states would put Biden around 318 electoral votes, she noted, a comfortable victory.