It’s been more than half a century since Republicans won Minnesota in the presidential election, but former President Donald Trump has a “very good chance” of ending his losing streak in a 2024 rematch with President Biden this November. said.
The former president heads to the reliably blue state on Friday to headline the Minnesota Republican Party’s annual Lincoln-Reagan fundraising dinner.
In the 2016 presidential election, Trump defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, losing Minnesota by just 1.5 percentage points. But in his re-election campaign four years ago, he lost the state to President Biden by more than 7 points.
“We think there’s a very good opportunity in Minnesota,” President Trump emphasized in an interview Wednesday with KSTP, a local television station in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. “We have a great camaraderie there.”
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Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, Saturday, May 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
“Tom Emmer is very involved,” Trump added, pointing to the House majority whip and adding, “We’ve been working hard on Minnesota.”
Emmer, who is scheduled to join President Trump at the state Republican party’s celebration, comes after the former president and his allies helped block Emmer’s bid for House speaker last fall. He is the chairman of Trump’s campaign.
The Trump and Biden campaigns will hold seven key battleground states that decided the 2020 election: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, which Biden narrowly won, and North Carolina, which Trump won by a razor-thin margin. Ready for battle. We believe they will likely meet again in a rematch in 2024, giving both campaigns an opportunity to expand the map.
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Two weeks ago, senior Trump campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, along with veteran pollsters, attended a closed-door Republican National Committee meeting for big-time donors at a resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Director Tony Fabrizio highlighted an internal investigation that suggests both. minnesota & Virginia It’s clearly in play. ”
“In both states, Donald Trump is in a position to flip critical electoral votes in his favor,” the study provided to Fox News emphasized.
Former President Donald Trump headlines the Republican National Committee’s Spring Donor Camp in Palm Beach, Florida on May 4, 2024. (Donald Trump 2024 Campaign)
And both states have significant numbers of rural white voters without college degrees who disproportionately support the former president.
The Biden campaign disagrees with the idea that either Minnesota or Virginia is a win.
Dan Kanninen, the Biden campaign’s battleground state manager, told reporters last week that “we’re not taking any vote for granted in any state,” but added, “We’re still six to seven months away from the general election. “I’m not thinking about future opinion polls,” he said. There are things that can predict things six to seven months ahead of time than weather forecasts, so the numbers are certainly as expected. ”
Kaninen emphasized that the campaign has voter engagement teams on the ground in both states.
He added: “We feel strongly that the Biden-Harris coalition in both Minnesota and Virginia was strong in the midterm and off-year elections and will continue to be strong for us in the fall of 2024.”
Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for the Biden campaign, pointed to the president’s current superiority in fundraising and on the ground in key battleground states, saying, “The Trump campaign has no campaign activities to speak of. They have little infrastructure and rely on leaking memos labeled ‘poll results.’ We paid to see victory. ”
But Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who launched a major unsuccessful primary challenge against the president, insists that “Minnesota is involved.”
Phillips said in an interview on Fox News’ “Special Edition” this week that Minnesota, like many other states, “is a reality that I think a lot of Democrats don’t want to confess…I want to tell the Democrats “There is,” he claimed. My colleagues who support President Biden, including myself, believe there is much work to be done. ”
This is the second consecutive election in which President Trump is aiming to flip Minnesota.
At a rally in northern Minnesota in late September 2020, President Trump boasted about the size of his audience, saying, “This is not a crowd of people who are going to finish second to Sleepy Joe in this state.” However, this is a derogatory term used against Biden.
While the Trump campaign is looking for opportunities to expand the map in Minnesota and Virginia, the Biden campaign appears to be eyeing not only Florida but also the battleground state of North Carolina.
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Trump carried the Sunshine State by less than 4 points in 2020, but two years ago Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio each won reelection by nearly 20 points. fulfilled.
Lacivita claimed that the Biden campaign is playing “a charlatan game” in both states, but argued that Trump has “a real opportunity to expand the map in Virginia and Minnesota.”
Trump’s stop in Minnesota comes after he held a large rally in Willwood, New Jersey, a red bastion in a predominantly blue state where Republicans have not led the state in a presidential election in more than 30 years. That was in a week. Trump lost the state to Biden by 16 points four years ago.
“We will win New Jersey,” President Trump vowed at the rally.
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