Trump Campaign Aims to ‘Protect’ 2016 Map to Win Again

(Bloomberg) -- The Trump campaign attempted to ease concerns about President Donald Trump’s plunging poll numbers and outline the path to the 270 electoral votes he must win to have a second term.

Bill Stepien, who became Trump’s campaign manager last week after Brad Parscale was demoted amid the slump in voter support, said the president doesn’t need to win the three industrial Midwest battleground states that helped him defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“We intend to protect this 2016 map. We only need to win either Wisconsin, or Michigan, or Pennsylvania to win this thing again,” Stepien told reporters Friday. Trump won all three of those states on the support of White men who had not gone to college and opposed Clinton, even though those states had picked Democrats in every previous election since 1992.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who was born in Pennsylvania and lives in nearby Delaware, has worked to bring those White, non-college educated men back into the Democratic fold. This year, the pandemic and the sagging economy are helping him.

“If we win any of these three states and the states the president won in 2016, Joe Biden stays in his basement. The president’s in the White House for four more years,” Stepien said.

Trailing in Polls

Trump is now trailing in most national and battleground state polls that show the public disapproves of his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic that has crashed the economy, infected 4 million Americans and killed 146,000. Trump has also been criticized for his handling of the nationwide protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

Stepien noted the campaign also has its sights on Ohio, Arizona, Florida and North Carolina, and compared the Trump campaign ground game in those areas favorably to Biden’s. The former vice president now has senior staff in those states, but they weren’t hired until July.

Noting that polls in 2016 pointed to a Clinton win, Stepien said the polls showing a Biden win are “flat-out wrong,” saying they under sample Republicans. He also said that internal campaign polling is allowing them to “exude the quiet confidence in our plan.”

Clinton won the popular vote in 2016, but Trump’s wins in key states gave him the Electoral College advantage.

Registration ‘Matters’

Stepien argued that Republican voter registration is up in states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida, while Democratic registration is falling, without saying where those numbers came from. The Trump campaign later said the figures it referenced come from each state’s Secretary of State office.

“I keep talking about voter registration, because it matters. And again it paints a really troubling picture for the Biden campaign,” Stepien said.

The Trump campaign is building a case for disputing the election results if Biden wins. Trump has been railing against efforts to increase absentee voting during the pandemic, saying it’s ripe for fraud. Biden is countering by recruiting volunteers to be poll workers, who are usually retirees, many of whom are afraid to work amid the virus.

Stepien said the campaign hopes to win Minnesota, Maine, New Hampshire and Nevada, some of which he lost by slim margins in 2016. But a recent Fox News poll showed Biden leading Trump 51% to 38% in Minnesota.

“We’re bullish in Minnesota,” Stepien said. “This is a state that can come around,” arguing that the President’s trade policies have favored the state and that the campaign has a strong ground game to rely on.

Red States

Stepien was dismissive when asked if the campaign was worried about Biden flipping traditionally Republican states like Arizona, Georgia or Texas. Biden is gaining favor in Arizona and could ride the coattails of Senate candidate Mark Kelly, an astronaut and husband of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who is polling well ahead of Senator Martha McSally. A recent poll put Biden and Trump in a tie for reliably Republican Texas.

“I would love -- I would invite the Biden campaign -- to play in Texas. They should play hard. They should go after Texas really, really heavily, spend a lot of money in the Dallas and Houston media markets...I’ll even buy their first ad.”

Since Stepien took charge, Trump has taken several steps to revive his sagging campaign, including offering daily news conferences and encouraging people to wear masks after disdaining them for months and canceling the Republican convention in Jacksonville amid fears that the gathering could become a spreader event.

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