Trump speaks in battleground state he vowed to avoid after losing twice
It's been more than 50 years since a Republican won Minnesota in a presidential election, but former President Trump says he's got "a really good shot" of breaking the losing streak this November in his 2024 rematch with President Biden.
The former president is in the reliably blue state Friday evening to headline the Minnesota GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan fundraising dinner.
Trump lost Minnesota by just 1½ points in his 2016 presidential election victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Four years ago, he lost the state to President Biden by more than seven points in his unsuccessful re-election campaign.
Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump promised a victory in Minnesota, saying that if he lost, "I'm never coming back."
Fast-forward four years and Trump is back and once again predicting a victory.
"We think we have a really good shot at Minnesota," Trump emphasized in an interview Wednesday with KSTP, a local TV station in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. "We have great friendships up there."
Trump added that he's "worked hard on Minnesota" and that "Tom Emmer is very much involved," pointing to the House majority whip.
Emmer, who is joining Trump at the state GOP gala, is chairing the Trump campaign in Minnesota even though the former president and his allies helped sink Emmer's bid last autumn to become House speaker.
As the Trump and Biden campaigns prepare for battle in seven crucial swing states that decided the 2020 election (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which were narrowly won by Biden, and North Carolina, which Trump carried by a razor-thin margin) and will likely once again in the 2024 rematch, both campaigns see opportunities to expand the map.
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Two weekends ago at a closed-door Republican National Committee retreat for top-dollar donors at a resort in Palm Beach, Florida, senior Trump campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita and veteran pollster Tony Fabrizio spotlighted internal surveys that suggested both "Minnesota and Virginia are clearly in play."
"In both states, Trump finds himself in positions to flip key electoral votes in his favor," the survey, which was shared with Fox News, emphasizes.
And both states have sizable populations of rural white voters without college degrees who disproportionately support the former president.
Biden's campaign disagrees that either Minnesota or Virginia are up for grabs.
While noting they are "not taking any state or any vote for granted," Biden campaign battleground states director Dan Kanninen told reporters last week "we don't see polls that are six or seven months out from a general election, head-to-head numbers certainly, as any more predictive than a weather report is six or seven months out."
Kanninen highlighted that the campaign has teams on the ground in both states engaging voters.
"We feel strongly the Biden-Harris coalition in both Minnesota and Virginia, which has been strong in the midterms and off-year elections, will continue to be strong for us in the fall of 2024," he added.
And Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt, pointing to the president's current fundraising dominance and ground-game advantage in the key battlegrounds, argued "Trump’s team has so little campaign or infrastructure to speak of they’re resorting to leaking memos that say ‘the polls we paid for show us winning.'"
But Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who launched a long-shot and unsuccessful primary challenge against the president, insists "Minnesota's in play."
Phillips, in an interview this week on Fox News' "Special Edition," argued Minnesota's "like a lot of states that I think a lot of my fellow Democrats don't want to confess is the reality. … I'm telling my Democratic colleagues who are supporting President Biden, myself included, that there's a lot of work to do."
While Trump's campaign looks for opportunities to expand the map in Minnesota and Virginia, Biden's campaign appears to be eyeing swing state North Carolina and Florida.
Trump carried the Sunshine State by less than four points in 2020, but two years ago, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and GOP Sen. Marco Rubio each won re-election by nearly 20 points.
LaCivita argued the Biden campaign was playing "a faux game" in both states but insisted Trump has a "real opportunity in expanding the map in Virginia and Minnesota."
Trump's stop in Minnesota comes a week after he held a large rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, a red bastion in an overwhelming blue state where no Republican has carried the state in a presidential election in over three decades. Trump lost the state to Biden by 16 points four years ago.
"We're going to win New Jersey," Trump vowed at the rally.