Trump Team Hopes to Expand Base to Democratic-Held States

(Bloomberg) -- Flush with cash, Donald Trump’s re-election team envisions a greatly expanded campaign map in which he’ll challenge his Democratic opponent in blue states he narrowly lost in 2016, including Minnesota, Colorado and even New Mexico and Oregon.

Trump’s campaign spent just $30,000 in Minnesota in 2016 and lost by only 1.5 percentage points. This time around, the campaign plans to pour millions of dollars into the state in order to win its 10 electoral college votes.

His campaign has also hired staff in Colorado, which he lost by about 5 points, and in New Mexico, which he lost by 8. The campaign had about $156 million on hand at the end of the third quarter, more than twice as much as Barack Obama’s re-election campaign at the same point in 2011.

“They certainly have more money to work with and early money and big money,” Ken Bickers, a political science professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said in a telephone interview. “He’s not having to spend it in the primary.”

If the president can successfully make places like Colorado and New Mexico competitive, he would give himself many more paths to victory in his re-election while forcing Democrats to spend money fighting back in states they considered safe.

But current polling suggests that winning the same states that propelled him to the White House in 2016 will be a challenge. He trails Democratic candidates in states he won including Florida and Wisconsin. A Minneapolis Star-Tribune poll published Oct. 21 showed him losing to three different Democrats, including home-state Senator Amy Klobuchar, by double digits.

Polls have also shown majority support among Americans for the House impeachment inquiry that looks increasingly likely to end with Trump’s trial in the Senate.

“Thanks to our record-breaking fundraising numbers we’re deploying critical resources into several key swing states before Democrats have even decided on their nominee,” Erin Perrine, a spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign, said in an e-mail. “These early investments will help us expand the map and guarantee President Trump wins in 2020.”

‘Gargantuan Effort’

The Democratic National Committee by comparison has $8.2 million on hand and $7.3 million in debt, giving Trump and the Republican National Committee a huge head start at building a campaign in key states.

But Trump allies aren’t overly optimistic that he can win a state such as Colorado, which has turned steadily leftward in the past decade and hasn’t been won by a Republican presidential candidate since George W. Bush in 2004.

“We’ve got a lot of millennials and they’re leaning socialist,” said Colorado State Representative James Wilson, a Republican. “People would like to see Colorado turn red. It’s going to take a gargantuan effort to turn the state red.”

Trump himself has repeatedly boasted that he’ll win Minnesota. He held a rally in Minneapolis on Oct. 10 that drew a capacity crowd of 20,000. His campaign has 20 paid staffers in the state already and plans to expand that number to 100.

“Minnesota is sort of now in the domain of being a battleground state,” said Paul Goren, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. “It’s possible that Trump could pick up Minnesota in 2020, but it’s going to be hard to do. Trump’s numbers here, his polling numbers are not good.”

In addition to Klobuchar, former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren both hold double-digit leads over Trump in Minnesota, according to the Star-Tribune poll. The state has the longest streak in the nation of supporting Democrats for president.

To change that trend, Trump would have to motivate his base supporters in the rural, agricultural and mining-intensive parts of the state to turn out in larger numbers than voters in the Minneapolis area, Goren said.

But one vivid indication that the state is competitive came on Thursday when Democratic Representative Collin Peterson, whose district overwhelmingly backed Trump in 2016, voted against approving the impeachment inquiry. Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey was the only other Democrat to oppose a resolution establishing procedures for the inquiry.

Colorado Challenges

In Colorado, Wilson says he’s seen cultural changes in his own Chaffee County -- where Trump won by about 4.6 percentage points in 2016 -- that don’t bode well for the president. A recent county commissioner’s race was tighter than expected, Wilson said, with the incumbent Republican -- a member of a family with roots in the county going back decades -- barely fending off a candidate who was a recent transplant to the state.

Colorado has seen in influx of younger, wealthier and more liberal voters from California in recent years, drawn by its scenic landscape and relatively cheaper cost of living.

One barometer for the state will be Republican Senator Cory Gardner’s re-election campaign. He is favored to lose to his Democratic challenger, former Governor John Hickenlooper, and must decide whether campaigning with Trump will be a “help or a hindrance,” Wilson said.

Trump’s campaign was persuaded to compete in New Mexico by the state Republican chairman, former Representative Steve Pearce. He said that he made a pitch to the Republican National Committee when it held its winter meeting near Albuquerque, shortly after Pearce became the party’s state leader.

“Check us out,” he says he told party and Trump campaign officials. Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, warmed to the idea, Pearce said. Trump held a rally near Albuquerque in September, and the campaign has hired a state director and will fill other positions, Pearce added.

“They’re going to spend a significant amount of money here,” Pearce said. “We just feel like there’s the opportunity to turn New Mexico red.”

While Trump campaign officials speak wistfully of competing in Oregon, there are no rallies currently planned for the state, according to Kevin Hoar, a spokesman for the Oregon Republican Party. “It’s kind of on the outside-tier of prospects,” he said in an interview.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mario Parker in Chicago at mparker22@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum

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