Former President Donald Trump returns to the Jersey Shore.
“We’re going to have a great rally and I hope you’ll all be there. It’s going to be in Wildwood, New Jersey. We’re going to have a big crowd,” the former president said on the eve of Saturday’s rally. It was advertised.
Wildwood, at the southern end of the Jersey Shore, is part of the Garden State’s Cape May County, a longtime blue state and strongly Republican county.
President Trump held a rally in Wildwood in January 2020, but four years ago he lost New Jersey to President Biden by 16 points.
The outcome of the rematch between Biden and Trump is half a year away from Election Day.
President Donald Trump attends a rally at the Wildwood Convention Center on January 28, 2020 in Wildwood, New Jersey. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The weekend rally is a short distance from New York City for Trump, who spends weekdays in court and will make history as the first former or current president to be tried in a criminal case.
“We’re going to try to win New Jersey. I want the people to know that I love New Jersey,” President Trump predicted Friday in a local radio interview in the Garden State. “Look, it’s not just like, ‘Hey, maybe we can get close.’ We’re going to win.”
But Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, a Biden surrogate, told reporters hours later that “Jersey will not be a welcoming place for Trump.”
And Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said, “The Trump campaign is talking about New Jersey. They’re talking about holding a concert at Madison Square Garden to rally voters in states like New York.” That’s what the Biden camp thinks here on Earth.” We remain focused on winning 270 electoral votes. ”
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Flipping the Garden State may not be at the top of the Trump campaign’s to-do list, but it is eyeing opportunities in Minnesota and Virginia, two other blue states that Biden easily won in 2020.
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. They are likely to meet again in a rematch in 2024, with both sides seeing an opportunity to expand the map.
Trump campaign senior advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, along with veteran pollsters, at a closed-door meeting of the National Republican Committee for Big Donors at a resort in Palm Beach, Florida, last weekend. ‘s Tony Fabrizio highlighted an internal investigation that suggested both “Minnesota” and “Minnesota State.” & Virginia has a clear advantage. ”
Former President Donald Trump will headline the Republican National Committee’s spring donor retreat on May 4 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Donald Trump 2024 Campaign)
The study, which was shared with Fox News, emphasized that “in both states, Donald Trump is well positioned to swing key electoral votes in his favor.”
President Trump is scheduled to return to Minnesota next weekend to headline a fundraising dinner for the state Republican Party.
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 Kaninen, the Biden campaign’s battleground state manager, told reporters earlier this 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 polls,” he said. There are things that can predict things 6 or 7 months ahead than weather forecasts, so these are numbers that can be predicted with certainty. ”
Try to narrow the funding gap between Trump and Biden
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. ”
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.
On March 26, President Biden visits the Chavis Community Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, and observes the situation. (Reuters/Elizabeth Franz)
While the Trump campaign is looking for opportunities to expand in Minnesota and Virginia, the Biden campaign appears to be eyeing the battleground states of North Carolina and Florida.
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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.”
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