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For years, presidential campaigns followed relatively predictable lines of trench warfare, with the result decided in a handful of battle states.
But the era of the electoral map hardened – 40 of the 50 states voted for the same party from 2000 until 2012
History continued below
Interviews with more than Two dozen politicians, consultants and activists across the country suggest that between Donald Trump's sweeping across the upper Midwest and demographic changes to the south and west, the field of competitive states should be radically Remodeled in 2020.
Minnesota, which has not become Republican to the presidency for nearly half a century, ranks high on the GOP's wish list. . Arizona and Georgia, until recent years considered as locks of the Red State, are undeniably within reach Democrats.
Democrats are engaged in speculation about Texas – the red citadel of the modern GOP – while Brad Parscale, Trump's 2020 campaign, sees Colorado as a target despite three consecutive Republican defeats.
Then there is the class of states that Trump invariably released in 2016 after three decades of Republican futility: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The President made advance proposals to everyone – Thursday, when Trump appears in Wilkes-Barre, he will make his fifth trip to Pennsylvania in less than two years.
"You could have a dozen states – not five or six – but a dozen states that are of significant significance and very competitive on both sides," said Paul Maslin, a high pollster democrat who shares time between Los Angeles and Madison, Wisconsin
Although the electoral map has changed over time, said Maslin, the number of potentially turning states in 2020 "could be at its peak … I think they're going to be very strongly competed. Democrats have seized early signals of a favorable climate that awaited them in the fall and until 2020. In the Midwest, after special election victories in Wisconsin this year, recent NBC polls News / Marist put Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin at an apparently deadly level – less than 40%.
In the South, where Democrats swept the 2017 elections in Virginia, Doug Jones toppled an Alabama Senate seat to the Democrats for the first time since 1994.
Vermont Governor Howard Dean, Former President of the Democratic National Committee, said that Jones' victory means that we can win anywhere, suggesting that even Texas, which Trump gained by 9 percentage points, could be challenged in 20's.
"If Beto [O’Rourke] can win or be very close" to defeating Senator Ted Cruz in the US Senate race in Texas this year, Dean said: "Texas will be at stake."
David Pepper The President of the Democratic Party of Ohio described the electoral prospects of the Democrats as "improving". From the upcoming electoral map, he said, "I think it's wider."
Yet, conversations with democratic leaders about how to proceed, with differences between those who focus on traditionally democratic Midwest states and those seeking to dig new horizons in more diverse states than many in the party believe they better represent the future of the party. in a general election against Trump has already forced a large number of potential Democratic candidates to expand their openings.
In a Democratic presidential primary that is expected to be colored by the election perceived by candidates in a match with Trump, the candidates' trips to states such as Georgia and Arizona have attracted the most attention. Rivaling attention with the first candidate states of Iowa and New Hampshire. When a likely candidate, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced last week that he would hold a fundraiser in September to raise $ 1 million for Democratic State parties – welcoming Democrats Outside of His Home Country –
] In the 2020 primary, said former New Democratic Democrat Governor Bill Richardson, who ran for president in 2008, "That could be a race that ends at the convention.I think it'll go to the end, because everyone will want to see the candidates go through the whole process, not just that are the first flavors of the months. "[19659002] For Richardson and other longtime Democrats, the perils of a modified presidential map became apparent the night of Trump's victory in 2016.
"I would never have thought living the day a Republican would wear Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, "said Ed Rendell, former governor of Pennsylvania and president DNC
In 2020, Rendell said, "We should be fighting in Georgia and places like that, and maybe even Texas, but I think the first thing we need to do is focus on the return of our traditional voters. "Richard Rendell said," For us, there is no map we can take to the Electoral College without Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. "
Even in Highly democratic urban coastal states, the desire to select a candidate who can re-anchor the party in the Midwest is heavily influenced by the pre-presidential campaign. In California, where at least three Democrats are planning campaigns – Garcetti, Sen. Kamala Harris and billionaire ecologist Tom Steyer – former Gov. Gray Davis said that "ideally, our candidate would come from the Midwest, would marry the Midwest values. "
"And if we do not have a Midwestern candidate, our candidate essentially has to settle in the Midwest, because I do not care about the charisma and persuasion of our candidate, if we can not not restore our confidence in the Democratic brand in the Midwest, we will not grab the presidency, "Davis said. "Should they be from the Midwest? Would it help? Absolutely."
But as Democrats prepare to confront Trump again in the Upper Midwest, the map's evolution is likely to force some difficult decisions about which states to target. Four years after Barack Obama 's victory in Ohio and Iowa, Hillary Clinton lost by wide enough margins to raise serious questions about her competitiveness at the presidential level: Trump won the day. Ohio 9 points and Iowa by almost 10 points. Comparing Trump's performance in Iowa to Georgia – that Democrats lost by less than 6 percentage points – Sean Clegg, a senior Harris adviser, said, "I think you can argue that the Georgia is more at stake than Iowa "
" You really look at the places that are gaining momentum demographically, in the direction of the Democrats, "he says," and Is Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida. states where you could also change the map for the future. "
As in Texas, where the Democrats were carried by the unlikely Rourke race at Cruz's home and recent suburban wins, the party puts up for 202 0 in Stacey Abrams' performance in the race. to the post of governor in Georgia.The election of a Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, North Carolina, helped the Democrats to improve their fundraising and organizing operations in a state that Trump gained by less than 4 percentage points
. Come to the horizon in the South, "said Jaime Harrison, associate chairman of the Democratic National Committee and former president of the Carolina State Party. South. "My theory has always been that the Democratic Party must stop writing these states."
When a presidential election, Harrison said, "The real key to all of this is knowing how to engage the African American community … The question is what can we do as a party, then in 2020, what our "
Tom Perez, the president of DNC, recently said that the" The new DNC's mission is to "organize everywhere," and that Pepper said the ideal candidate could appeal to Democrats.
"I think with the right candidates, you can do very well in the Midwest," Pepper said. "And I think with the changing demographics and changing politics these days, I think you can also … compete in Arizona, Georgia and a few other places."
But many Democrats in the states grow in Arizona and Georgia – the sentiment is particularly acute in Wisconsin, where Clinton did not campaign at all in the general election. And the party's efforts to capitalize on its more urban coalition, made up of young people, women, non-white voters and academics, have left many rural democrats wondering at what price in their own states .
Minnesota Democratic Representative Rick Nolan, a candidate for the position of Lieutenant Governor, has lamented the message of the National Democrats in recent months. "It's so focused on urban issues that" basically reading between the lines, [it] said, "Embrace rural America goodbye."
In part because of his relatively moderate positions on mining in his historic Iron Range district, which hit Trump hard, Nolan doubted that militants from his own party had supported him. he had again
He said, "One wonders where your party is going."
Matt Barron, a Massachusetts consultant who left the Democratic Party last year for his frustration with what he described as a lack of "The Coalition's bottom-up argument, this argument that the demographic forces are just going to take our little surfboards and we're all going to float along the big wave." .. it's great for 2024 or 2028. I do not know if it's good for 2018 or 2020. "
In a recent trip to the Nolan district in northeastern Minnesota Trump made it clear that his narrow loss remained in his mind – and claimed categorically that it will win Minnesota in 2020. 659002] "I hate to talk about that, but we got so close to winning the state of Minnesota," Trump told a crowd of thousands of people at the time. A rally in Duluth. "And in two and a half years, it's going to be really, really easy, I think."
Matt Schlapp, president of the influential American Conservative Union, said that he expects Trump to compete not only in Minnesota, but in two states of the United States. West that he lost in 2016: Colorado and Nevada.
"There is always a game of who can extend the map, and where should you play the defense, and Trump of course broke all that by winning states that no one really anticipated – in a context wider – that he was going to succeed, "said Schlapp, former political director of President George W. Bush." I think the map is different now. "
For his part, Dean, who ran without success for president in 2004, predicted Democrats will take over Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2020, with a tougher road to Wisconsin and North Carolina.
Dean, who urged Democrats to pick a candidate less 40 or 50 years old, said that the true division within the Democratic Party is generational, not geographic, but he suggested that a larger map would only help a younger candidate somewhat inclined to "mouse around mice" "in an attempt to appeal to narrow segments of the electorate.
"We see this as a zero-sum game," the 69-year-old Dean Dean said of his own generation. "They see this as an extra game, and I think it's where we are heading in this country."
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