‘No extra credit:’ As some Democrats see a blowout brewing, Biden zeros in on core states

Powered by a favorable political climate and fundraising bonanza, Joe Biden made a late push this fall to expand the battleground map into states Donald Trump won easily in 2016.

But heading into Election Day, the Democratic nominee’s braintrust is remaining steadfastly focused on the same core six swing states they first identified when the general election began as their easiest path to reaching 270 electoral votes.

As the former vice president’s position has ticked up in public and private polling in a batch of GOP-leaning states, Democrats’ whispers about the prospect of a landslide have grown louder down the final stretch of the 2020 presidential race.

Still, Biden’s perpetually cautious team has dedicated the overwhelming bulk of its resources to a trifecta of former “blue wall” states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and Sun Belt states — Arizona, Florida and North Carolina — determined not to repeat their party’s mistakes of four years ago.

“There’s no extra credit in getting beyond 270,” said Jenn Ridder, the Biden campaign’s national states director. “That doesn’t make us win more. We need to get to 270.”

No other states have seen more advertising from the Biden campaign than those six: over the past two weeks, it has spent $75 million on the TV airwaves there, according to data provided by Advertising Analytics.

In Pennsylvania alone, the campaign spent more there over that period, nearly $17 million, than it has combined in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Georgia, where it has invested less than $12 million total.

And over the final month of the race, Biden has logged more stops in Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan than every other state combined.

“We don’t feel the way we did in 2016, in one very important respect: Absolutely no one is taking victory for granted. I mean, no one,” said Michigan Rep. Dan Kildee, who believes a swarm of first-time early voters exhausted by Trump will help deliver his state to Biden. “A big part of it is organic. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s so much the campaign that is causing that energy.”

In the final days of the campaign, Democrats have reason to feel confident about each of the six core states: Polls show Biden leading comfortably in the trio of Midwest battlegrounds, while holding smaller but consistent edges in the other three to the south. Victories in each state, all of which Trump won in 2016, would give Biden a commanding victory over Trump, yielding him north of 330 electoral votes.

Biden’s edge doesn’t mean Democrats, still stung by Trump come-from-behind victory, are resting easy.

It’s why his campaign has made sure the six states are the focal point of their spending and visits, even as the broader environment has shifted in his favor over the last several months. That wasn’t the case four years ago, when Hillary Clinton infamously neglected to visit Wisconsin and spent far more sporadically in key states.

“The core battleground that the campaign and allies sketched out months ago is still the core battleground to get to the tipping point, to getting to 270,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist.

Biden officials are quick to insist they think they can win in conservative-leaning battlegrounds like Iowa, Georgia and Texas. All three states have seen a late push in advertising from the campaign, as well as visits from at least one member of the Democratic ticket in the final week.

While some political prognosticators are now labeling Texas as a “toss-up,” Biden appeared to lower expectations about flipping a state Democrats haven’t carried since 1976. “I don’t know about Texas,” he recently conceded to reporters.

Biden aides are particularly bullish — and surprised — about Ohio, a traditional presidential battleground that Clinton lost by nearly 10 points in 2016, but one Democrats think has bounced back for them this year. Polls show Trump with a small lead in the state.

“Ohio presents an opportunity I wouldn’t have foreseen three months ago,” Ridder said. “I wouldn’t have thought we’d be as competitive as we are in that state.

While Democrats lost those states badly four years ago, they suffered far more modest defeats in the six top targets. Trump won by less than a point in each of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, less than two points in Florida, and by less than five points in North Carolina and Arizona.

“You’ll see we have greater investment in those states at every level, from TV to organizing to principal travel,” Ridder said.

Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, have concentrated their travel in the six battleground states, according to a travel schedule reviewed by McClatchy. Since September, of the 45 total trips from either of the two principals, 31 have been to one of the core states. Pennsylvania leads the way with eight visits between them, followed by Michigan with six, Florida with five, Wisconsin and North Carolina with four each, and Arizona with three.

Biden is scheduled to campaign in Pennsylvania, the possible tipping point state in the Electoral College, in each of the two days before Nov. 3. And on Saturday, he held two events with former President Barack Obama in Michigan, where polls show Trump trailing by nearly nine points.

Part of the heavy Pennsylvania focus this fall was due to convenience — the southeastern corner of the commonwealth is less than an hour drive from his Delaware home — but it’s also about math. Packing 20 electoral votes, Pennsylvania is the second largest battleground state on the map, trailing only Florida.

Biden is averaging a lead of five points there, but the Trump campaign is furiously contesting it, with the president making three stops there last Monday and another three on Saturday.

The Democratic nominee has spent noticeably less time in Wisconsin, mostly due to the spike of coronavirus cases across the state, according to a top aide. Before Friday, Biden had visited the state only twice this fall.

The campaign is closely monitoring the cities and states with the worst outbreaks and making travel decisions that are in part driven by lowering the risk of exposure to Biden and traveling staff. Wisconsin hit new single-day record highs for coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths last week. Still, polls show Biden with an average lead of nearly 9 points there.

“They have shown great restraint even though people have been critical of them not hopping all around. We are not holding him hostage to these huge gatherings,” said Wisconsin Rep. Gwen Moore. “We’re a lot more forgiving of our candidate appearing in person with huge crowds. We’re just not taking those kinds of risks.”

Biden officials also point out that even as they expand the electoral map to traditionally Republican states, they’re still cognizant of protecting states Clinton narrowly won in 2016. Biden and Harris, for instance, have visited Nevada a total of four times, trying to shore up support in a state Democrats won by little more than two points during the last election.

Biden’s Friday stop in Minnesota, a state Republicans haven’t carried since 1972, underscored how the campaign is implementing its take-no-chances approach all the way through the end. Even as Trump trails in Minnesota by an average of eight points, he also visited the state Friday, hoping to pull off an upset in the upper Midwest like he did four years ago.

Top Democratic strategists say that, in their view, Trump can still win, in part because he remains competitive in states like Nevada. But they say comparisons to 2016 are misguided because Biden’s lead in the polls is larger and more stable than the one Clinton held then.

“It would require a polling error much larger than anything we saw in 2016,” said Guy Cecil, the president of Priorities USA, a super PAC backing Biden.

McClatchy’s Ben Wieder and Adam Wollner contributed.

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