A senior official in President Biden’s reelection campaign said Monday that he doesn’t expect the incumbent president to win Florida in the 2024 presidential election.
“No,” Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in an interview. Pack News Whether or not you consider Florida a “battleground state.”
The president’s campaign later released a statement, seemingly contradicting Dillon’s answer to the Florida question, claiming the state would be a “stake” for Biden in the November election.
“Florida is a key state from top to bottom of the race for President Biden and the Democratic Party,” Dan Kanninen, the Biden campaign’s battleground states director, said in a statement.
“Trump and his unrealistic supporters are taking Florida for granted, and their extreme policies continue to drive up costs and strip Floridians of their freedoms,” he added. “The President can tell a powerful story on the issues that matter most to Floridians, which is why our campaign continues to expand our presence and investment in the state.”
Dillon’s comments contradict those of Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, who told reporters at the Florida Democratic caucuses a few days ago that Florida could potentially favor the 81-year-old incumbent president.
“Florida is on the list,” Harrison told media in Tampa, Florida. ABC Action News Last week. “And that’s why I’m here now.”
Earlier this month, a Fox News poll showed former President Donald Trump leading the race in his adopted home state.
Polls show Trump leading Biden by four points (50% to 46%) in a head-to-head rematch of the 2020 election.
When third-party candidates are included, the 78-year-old former president’s lead widens to seven points, 47% to 40%.
Meanwhile, the FiveThirtyEight average of Florida polls gives Trump an 8.2 percentage point lead.
Trump defeated Biden in Florida by a margin of 51.2% to 47.8% in 2020. In 2016, he defeated former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by a margin of 49% to 47.8%.
Dillon, who served as Biden’s campaign manager in the 2020 presidential election, argued that at least seven states will be battleground states in this election.
She named Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina as states where the winner in November’s election is unclear.
Several 2024 polls have shown Trump holding slight leads over Biden in those seven states.
“The job of the campaign is to keep as many swing states in the running for as long as possible, so that we can fine-tune the flexibility of the campaign,” Dillon said. “If you look at 2020, Georgia and Arizona weren’t even swing states at this point, and they’re not traditional swing states. So at the end of the day, what we have to do is get to 270 states, and the easiest path is certainly [by preserving] “The blue wall, there’s a lot of core coalition supportive of the president.”
“But I’m bullish on North Carolina, and I was bullish on Arizona, so there’s no point in saying that. [four years ago] “That’s because we looked at it very carefully,” she added.
Biden lost North Carolina to Trump by 1.3 percentage points in 2020.
