Joe Biden faces a narrow path to victory in the 2024 election, and Donald Trump's advantage may even be better than many thought before. Currently, it looks like Trump will sweep the Sun Belt battleground states (Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia), which means that Biden has to win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to win the presidency.
That's assuming that all other states vote the same in 2024 as they did in 2020 — and that is an assumption that the Biden campaign shouldn't make. The first problem that Biden has is that Trump leads in the polls in those states. He may not win them all, but all it will take is one for him to win the election.
Several blue states appear to be competitive now, and one of them is Minnesota. The Biden campaign has publicly dismissed this idea, claiming that the polls are biased. But according to Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), Democrats should not take Minnesota for granted.
“I think that Democrats are concerned just because the stakes are so high, but I think what I would tell those pundits and a lot of times if you’re really freaking out it’s because you’re not on the ground doing the work,” Walz told the Washington Post. “You’re not witnessing the 18 field offices opening up in Minnesota, the Biden-Harris campaign not taking Minnesota for granted. It’s going to be close out here. We’re not a given."
Here's where things get really funny.
“We have the longest record of voting for Democrats of any of the states because we made the wise choice for Walter Mondale, but in all those years since then it’s been close,” Walz added. “And we worked hard. So my message to them is this is not that unusual.”
While Walz is warning Democrats not to take Minnesota for granted, he remains confident that Biden will ultimately win the state.
Related: I’d Panic if I Were a Democrat, Too
“Just look at the fundamentals. … There’s not a Trump field office,” Walz said. “The Republican Party in Minnesota last time they filed their financial returns had $52 in the bank, and they haven’t won a statewide race here since 2006. But yeah, I think when you’re hearing that Minnesota, that we take it seriously, we do. My hope is the Trump campaign spends a lot of money here, which takes money away from North Carolina, which takes money from somewhere else.”
I suspect Walz is making a pathetic attempt at reverse psychology here because based on the polls, Trump is far more likely to flip Minnesota than Biden is at flipping North Carolina. Biden's RealClearPolitics average lead in Minnesota stands at +2.3 points, while Trump's average lead in North Carolina is +4.8 points. Minnesota is more in toss-up territory than Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia as well.
That said, I do think that it's likely better for Trump to focus resources on Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania because he has led in the polls in the states. Walz's point that Minnesota was the only state to vote for Mondale tells us that Trump should be cautious about investing resources there unless some polls show him ahead.
If Walz is telling Democrats not to take Minnesota for granted, that tells you the situation there is actually bad. It may not mean that Trump can win it, but if he's competitive in Minnesota, he's likely competitive and winning in more places than Democrats realize.
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