Hillary Clinton is moving to shrink Donald Trump’s narrow path to the White House.
Enticed by Trump’s weakness in the typically Republican strongholds of Arizona and Georgia, Clinton has begun shifting money there for grassroots organizing and voter turnout. The resources are being invested through the Democratic Party in each state, a Clinton campaign aide confirmed.
Public opinion polls have shown unusually competitive races in these states for months. Arizona and Georgia are good for 27 Electoral College votes, and forcing Trump to play defense on red turf would be a boon for Clinton, who has more ways to reach 270 than her GOP opponent.
However, Clinton has yet to invest in advertising the two states, a signal that her team agrees with the Republicans who argue that Arizona and Georgia aren’t as in-play as surveys suggest.
Indeed, the states have appeared competitive in past elections, only to break hard for the Republicans in the homestretch. But the Trump campaign looks spooked.
The Republican nominee has made multiple visits to Arizona since securing the nomination in early May, and is tentatively set to hold another rally in Phoenix this week.
Also this week, Trump’s running mate is headed to Georgia. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is scheduled for three rallies, one each in Atlanta and the crucial vote-rich counties of Houston, in central Georgia, and Whitfield, in the northwest.
That’s not how presidential campaigns tend to approach states that are supposedly in the bag — especially this close to the election.
“I still think Arizona is in play, but only if the Clinton campaign makes it a target state and dedicates resources here,” a Republican operative based there told the Washington Examiner. “That’s not an easy call for any campaign to make because of how red Arizona is.”
Arizona Republicans are nervous. They worry that Trump’s coarse rhetoric generally, and position on how he would handle illegal immigration specifically, could combine to turn off white suburban moderates, while motivating higher than usual turnout among Hispanics.
Trump could have similar problems in Georgia, which has a high concentration of African-American voters. Republicans there concede that Trump begins the general election in a more difficult position than past GOP nominees, but are otherwise more confident than their counterparts in the southwest.
If President Obama couldn’t win in 2008 amid a Democratic wave and with record African-American turnout, it seems inconceivable to them that a well-known, disliked liberal Democrat like Clinton could get it done in 2016.
“If Barack Obama can not have a crescendo with turnout that can actually swing this state, I am looking for someone to tell me — besides unreliable polling — how that is going to happen,” said Derrick Dickey, chief of staff to Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., who was an unknown wealthy businessman when he ran in the 2014 midterms and was down in several polls before winning big.
Arizona has voted Democrat only once since 1948, for President Bill Clinton in 1996; Georgia just once since 1980 (for Clinton in 1992.)
But Trump leads Clinton in Arizona by only 1.5 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics polling average, his position there compounded by low support among Hispanics. In Georgia, where Trump’s fragility with African-Americans could wound, he and Clinton are tied.
The Clinton campaign has responded by green-lighting resources for get-out-the-vote activities in each state that is costing Brooklyn somewhere in the six figures range. The investment includes the sharing of proprietary data that allows for the same micro-targeting being used in the heavily contested swing states.
In Georgia, Clinton headquarters opened in Atlanta on Aug. 21, and the campaign sent actor Tony Goldwyn to headline the event Bloomberg Politics News reported. In Arizona, the state Democratic Party has deployed 130 paid field staff, plus volunteers, to turn out voters for Clinton and the rest of the ticket.
“We’ve invested heavily in field operations,” said Enrique Gutierrez, a spokesman for the Arizona Democratic Party.
The Republican National Committee, handling the bulk of field operations and data analytics for the Trump campaign, told the Examiner that it is not concerned about Arizona and Georgia and not making any investments in either state.
That makes sense based on past history.
Democrats have threatened to contest Arizona and Georgia recently, based on initial polling that looked promising for their presidential nominee or Senate candidate, only to see Republicans finish strong and win easily.
Both states have Republican governors, legislatures, and GOP-dominated congressional delegations.
But even if the RNC is sensibly taking each state for granted and focusing its attention on the 14 battlegrounds that have decided recent elections, the Trump campaign is not.
In Georgia, the Trump campaign, in conjunction with the state Republican Party, is opening field offices and deploying paid and volunteer staff.
“While we take nothing for granted, we have every confidence that Georgia is a Republican state and will stay a Republican state,” Jennifer Hazelton, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign in the Peach State, said.
