7 states where Donald Trump could expand the map in November

Former President Trump has spoken about flipping Democratic-leaning states in his already tight race with President Biden for the White House.

Trump and Biden are vying for several key battleground states, including Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan, but the former president’s campaign has said traditionally Democratic states are also at stake.

Trump has set his sights on Minnesota and Virginia in recent weeks, two states that voted against him in both 2016 and 2020 but that some polls now show are only a few percentage points apart in their support. Polls would need to swing in Trump’s favor for those states to be more realistic, but there are signs they could end up on the ticket.

Here are the seven blue states where President Trump expects Democrats to win in November:

Minnesota

Although Minnesota last voted Republican in a presidential election more than half a century ago, Trump has frequently cited the state as a place he can extend his reach to win the presidency.

And it could be one of the most likely places he could flip if the election tips heavily in his favor.

The Decision Desk HQ/The Hill average of state polls is based on a relatively small number of polls, but Biden has a lead of just over half a percentage point in the state. An internal poll conducted by the Trump campaign late last month and earlier this month gave the former president a 3-point lead, while another independent poll had Biden ahead by 2 points.

Trump nearly won the state in 2016, losing to Hillary Clinton by less than 2 points — the closest victory for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1984 — but in 2020 Biden won handily by 7 points.

Trump had vowed to win the North Star State in 2020 and said he would “never come back” if he lost. But Trump returned to the state earlier this month to attend the state Republican Party’s Lincoln-Reagan Dinner, where he falsely claimed he won Minnesota in 2016 and 2020.

Meanwhile, Minnesota’s Democratic Party is represented by Senator Tina Smith (D-MN). CBS reported Trump is “grasping at straws.”

New Hampshire

The state hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since George W. Bush in 2000, but it has consistently recorded some of the closest vote margins in recent decades.

Hillary Clinton won the state by less than half a percentage point in 2016. Biden widened that lead in 2020, winning by seven points, but polls so far have suggested it could be a closer race.

The few polls that have been conducted have mostly shown Biden ahead, but only by a few points: The DDHQ/The Hill polling average has him leading 48.5% to 44.5%, and one poll this month had him leading by the same margin.

But a separate poll this month by NH Journal/Praecones Analytica of the three-way race, including independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., showed Trump with a slight lead, within the margin of error, at 36.6% to Biden’s 36.5%.

Biden has visited New Hampshire several times during his campaign, most recently on Tuesday. Event to promote the PACT bill It was aimed at providing medical care to veterans.

President Trump may need to focus more on the state to break the Democratic trend in presidential elections, but the state has frequently been talked about as a battleground this century.

Virginia

Biden nearly beat Trump in Virginia 500,000 votes Four years ago, and four years before that, Old Dominion The only southern state With Clinton.

But this year, the former president has his sights set on flipping the state. Back to red.

Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign NBC News He argued that the Biden campaign is “intentionally playing a false game” in its ambitions to flip states such as Florida and North Carolina, but that the former president “has a real chance to expand the map in Virginia and Minnesota.”

The campaign pointed to internal polling that reportedly gave Biden a slight lead in Virginia, where the DDHQ/The Hill polling average had him at about 46% support, less than two points behind Trump’s 44%.

a Conduct a public opinion poll According to DDHQ, Kennedy’s campaign, which showed how an independent candidate could win the 270 electoral votes, gave Trump a one-point lead over Biden in Virginia in a head-to-head race, but Kennedy’s presence on the ballot gave the state an advantage for Biden.

Maine

Maine hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988 and is an even longer shot for a Republican presidential candidate, but a landslide victory is not out of the question.

A Pan Atlantic Research Omnibus poll found that Trump led Biden by six points among Maine voters, with 38 percent backing him to Biden’s 32 percent, while 21 percent chose “another candidate” and 9 percent said they were undecided. Spectrum News.

A Kennedy-affiliated poll conducted last month showed Trump leading Biden by less than 2 points, and his campaign said his inclusion in the three-way race meant the poll showed Biden winning Maine.

Trump, at least for now, has not spoken about winning Maine in this election. He said In August 2020, he predicted that Biden would win the state that year. Biden won by nine points.

new york

Trump remains confident he can win the heavily Democratic state of New York in the 2024 presidential election, despite being on trial in that state in a landmark case over hush money paid during the 2016 campaign.

“I think we have a chance to win New York. We haven’t won it in decades. As a Republican, I think we have a pretty good chance. You look at the crowd, you see something nobody’s ever seen before,” Trump said in an interview on “Fox & Friends” that aired Friday after holding a rare rally in the Bronx.

“And we’re going to win New York. And once we win New York, the election is over. We’re going to take over the country. We’re going to take over the country.”

Polls show Biden leading as expected in New York, a state that has voted Democratic in presidential elections for more than 30 years. New poll from the University of Siena Biden’s lead is in the single digits at 47 percent, while Trump’s is at 38 percent.

The 45th president’s rally in New York City on Thursday underscored how he is trying to rally support in Democratic strongholds, following rallies in the Democratic states of Minnesota and New Jersey.

New Jersey

The Garden State appears to be another big gamble for President Trump in November.

“We are going to win in New Jersey. I want people to know that. It’s not just, ‘Well, maybe we’re close,’ we are going to win,” Trump said. He said in a radio interview At NJ101.5.

That’s an ambitious goal in states won by Biden. 16 points in the last cycleSince endorsing Bill Clinton in 1992, the Democratic Party has won every presidential election.

There is little polling on how the Trump-Biden rematch will play out in New Jersey this time around, but the former president is still optimistic about the possibility of an upset.

“As you can see, today we are expanding the electoral map to officially call the match in New Jersey,” Trump told a crowd at a rally in New Jersey’s Jersey Shore earlier this month. The New Jersey Monitor reported“We’re going to win New Jersey.”

New Mexico

Trump in New Mexico He told Breitbart It may have been “stupid” for him to take that shot back in January, but he was going to take it anyway.

“The other thing I’m going to do, and this may be a stupid thing to do, is to go all out in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, New Mexico and Minnesota, a state I haven’t won in years,” Trump said.

The last time the Land of Enchantment voted for a Republican president was in 2004, and Trump Painting New Mexico Red In the last election, Biden won about 10 Points.

Polling in the state has been sparse this election cycle, but another recent survey sponsored by Kennedy showed Biden with a 7-point lead in the state.