[Note: I, and probably you, have seen others make the observations set forth below. I take leave to enter them here because they have occurred to me apart from having seen them voiced elsewhere 🙂 .]
On March 21st, Republican Strategist Karl Rove – whose political acumen one must respect, since he engineered two electoral victories for former President George W. Bush (the second being particularly impressive, since by the time of the 2004 presidential election even Mr. Bush’s own Administration conceded that the purported bases of his order to invade Iraq – weapons of mass destruction – weren’t there) – wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “2024 Comes Down to Only Seven States,” in which he asserted that only the Electoral College votes of Arizona (11), Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Nevada (6), North Carolina (16), Pennsylvania (19), and Wisconsin (10) are truly at issue this November and that the presidency will be decided by how these states’ respective EC votes are allocated between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
In a post about six months ago, projecting Mr. Biden’s path to victory, I declared that Mr. Biden should “stick to the knitting. … Mr. Biden and his team need to focus their efforts on the swing states they are most likely to win ….”
I consider North Carolina Fool’s Gold for Mr. Biden (remember, as usual, that all spouted here is Noise; I considered Georgia Fool’s Gold for Mr. Biden in 2020 😉 ) because Mr. Trump won the state by 75,000 votes in 2020 despite an attractive Democratic Senatorial candidate (who imploded late in the campaign due to a sexual peccadillo). Although the state has the fastest-growing population in the nation (400,000 new residents since 2020), a significant segment these new residents reportedly come from Red States, and another significant segment is undoubtedly comprised of children. Mr. Biden trails Mr. Trump in all recorded state polls.
Although a recent Wall Street Journal poll recently found Mr. Biden trailing Mr. Trump by only one point in Georgia, and despite my unwarranted 2020 pessimism about the state, I remain leery of it. Former Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ grassroots movement has seemingly lost some of its zeal; Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis’ prosecution of Mr. Trump for election interference, while obviously well-warranted (although her own sexual peccadillo in that matter warrants comment in another post), has undoubtedly enflamed the ire of Mr. Trump’s supporters; despite the fact that state Republicans like GA Gov. Brian Kemp detest Mr. Trump for roiling their state’s affairs, their organization will undoubtedly support him; and in 2020 the state’s Republican hierarchy was perhaps surprised that the presidential race was close. It won’t be taken by surprise again.
I am intrigued by Arizona, although the same Journal poll found Mr. Biden currently trailing Mr. Trump by 5 points – outside the margin of error — presumably due to its citizens’ displeasure with the still-unsettled situation at the southern border. The state’s Republican Party is at war with itself. There is still a significant segment of what might be considered “[John] McCain Republicans” who detest MAGAs. Despite the fact that former SC Gov. and U.S. U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley had ended her candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination weeks before the state’s closed Republican primary (i.e., only Republicans could vote in it), she still won 20% of the vote from Mr. Trump. Very divisive MAGA Keri Lake will be the Republican Senatorial Candidate. Perhaps most crucially, abortion activists are trying to put a state constitutional amendment securing the right to abortion on the 2024 ballot, which would certainly drive up Democratic turnout. [In support of women’s abortion rights, Democratic Arizona State Senator Eva Burch recently announced on the floor of the Arizona legislature that she had had to undergo an abortion – for a child she and her husband wanted – because her pregnancy was no longer viable. (I heard her speech; Mr. Biden’s team should take it and run it nationwide.)] For Mr. Biden, Arizona’s 11 EC votes could provide insurance to offset any loss of Wisconsin’s 10 EC votes.
As to Nevada, which Mr. Biden won in 2020, it looks to me (conceding my math skills never exceeded the first grade) that its 6 EC votes will primarily be relevant to winning Mr. Biden the presidency if he needs them to pair with Arizona’s 11 EC votes to offset any loss of Michigan’s 15 EC votes (while he wins Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) or with Georgia’s or North Carolina’s 16 EC votes to offset any loss of Pennsylvania’s 19 EC votes (while he wins Michigan and Arizona or Wisconsin) … but we’ve now moved into what I obviously consider perilously-uncertain electoral territory for the President.
All that said: Mr. Biden needs to maintain focus. I will always consider a large factor in 2016 Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton’s defeat to be that she and her team took too much for granted, misallocated resources, took their eyes off the ball. She courted votes in states like Utah and Georgia – states in which the odds were, put charitably, long that she would carry — while she failed to visit Wisconsin even once. The President, unlike Ms. Clinton, needs to scan the electoral battlefield to be sure that he doesn’t sustain any losses among what are now considered safe “Blue States.” Assuming all such “Blue States” are secure, two final points:
- The President’s overwhelming electoral focus needs to be on winning Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (the Journal poll shows him trailing in the first two, but within the margin of error for each state). It is by far his most straightforward path to victory. If Mr. Biden wins the combined 44 EC votes of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, he gets the 270 Electoral College votes needed to claim the presidency regardless of what happens in other swing states. Once he has to move beyond the “Blue Wall,” any other electoral scenario is a crapshoot; his course seems particularly precarious if he does not win Pennsylvania.
- Anticipating a point very likely to be elaborated upon in a future post: Rather than seeking to expand his Electoral College margin by winning more states, Mr. Biden should focus on expanding his margin of victory in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
That’s the Realism. Where’s the Optimism? Part II. Enjoy the weekend.
McCoy's Noise 