Former Vice President Joe Biden said he would broaden the 2020 playing field for Democrats, telling an audience of progressive activists and voters he would campaign heavily in the region and could beat President Trump in several Southern states the party has lost for decades.
“I plan on campaigning in the South,” Biden said at Monday’s Poor People’s Moral Action Congress meeting in Washington, D.C. “If I’m your nominee, I’m winning Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, believe it or not, and I believe we can win Texas and Florida.” Based on promising polling, Biden said, “I have no intention of walking away.”
Biden’s comments came in the wake of survey data that shows Trump trailing his potential Democratic rivals among national voters. A Fox News poll released Sunday showed Trump trailing the former vice president by 10 points nationally, with just 39% of respondents saying they’d vote to reelect him in 2020.
Democrats have long salivated at the thought of flipping the South out of Republican control. In 2008, Barack Obama narrowly beat Republican rival John McCain in North Carolina. Otherwise, the state hasn’t gone Democratic in a presidential race since 1976. That year was the last time South Carolina and Texas backed a Democratic nominee, Jimmy Carter.
Florida has been a toss-up for several straight election cycles. But with its diverse populations, particularly large swaths of transplanted Northeast residents in South Florida, the state is more politically heterodox.
Part of Biden’s appeal to the Democratic electorate is the idea that his candidacy can help win over more moderate voters in an election against a polarizing figure like Trump, who has seen his poll numbers drop in traditionally red strongholds like Texas.
“There are certain things where it just takes a brass knuckle fight,” Biden told audience members. “You have to go out and beat these folks if they don’t agree with you. That’s what presidents do. Persuade people if they don’t agree … you beat them, you make an explicit case like we did for the House. I’d do the same for the Senate by making it clear to Republicans that on some things there’s a rationale for compromise.”
While Biden promised to help expand the Electoral College map should he win his party’s nomination, his campaign has come under fire for not campaigning more actively. His appearance Monday was the first time he has shared the spotlight with other Democratic presidential candidates since announcing his campaign in April.
Biden has participated in less than half as many public events as other prominent Democrats. Instead, political strategists familiar with his campaign believe Biden is more concerned with securing a vast war chest in preparation for a general election fight against Trump.
