PALM BEACH, Fla. — Top officials from former President Donald Trump’s campaign believe they can turn the Democratic strongholds of Minnesota and Virginia into their November column, they told donors behind closed doors in a Republican National Committee retreat Saturday.
Brandishing internal research, pollster Tony Fabrizio and senior consultants Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita gave a series of presentations that focused on finances, messaging and the political road map, according to two people who were present at the Four Seasons resort here. Fabrizio’s numbers, published in a slide shared with NBC News, showed Trump ahead of President Joe Biden by small margins in key 2020 swing states — including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
The Trump camp’s discussion about expanding the electoral map deeper into the Democratic territory of Minnesota and Virginia comes as Biden’s reelection team says it is keeping an eye on North Carolina — which Republicans have won in three presidential races consecutively – and in Florida, where the Republican Party prevailed. in the last two presidential elections. Biden won the 2020 race by a margin of 74 electoral votes, with victories in the key states of Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia coming from a cumulative lead of about 44,000 votes.
“I think the Biden campaign is deliberately playing a false game by talking about [how] they’re going to expand the map in Florida and North Carolina,” LaCivita said in a phone interview with NBC News. “But we have a real opportunity to expand the map in Virginia and Minnesota.”
The main lines of the internal survey shared with donors are relatively consistent with sparse results. public polls that show Biden with a small lead in Virginia, while Trump’s lead in his own polls in Minnesota is in disagreement with the few public surveys in that state. But all public polls in Minnesota and Virginia — and tests conducted by the Trump campaign — are within their margins of error, suggesting close races in both states.
Trump’s team tested head-to-head, four-way and six-way races in each state, according to LaCivita. In the six-way trial in Minnesota, which includes four independent candidates, Trump and Biden were tied at 40% each with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. When the field was narrowed to four candidates, Trump led Biden 46% to 41%. In a head-to-head matchup, Trump led Biden 49% to 46%.
Biden won Minnesota by about 7 percentage points in 2020, and the state has not favored a Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign.
In Virginia, Trump’s internal poll showed Biden leading Trump 40% to 37% in a six-way test that included Kennedy at 8%. Biden led Trump 48% to 44% in a head-to-head matchup. And in a four-way race, Biden had a 42% to 41% lead over Trump.
Trump aides have refused to make the full polls, including their methodology, available to NBC News. Campaigns often use the promise of playing offense on new ground as an incentive for donors to give money to support these efforts.
“The Trump team has so little campaign or infrastructure to speak of that they are resorting to leaking memos that say ‘the polls we paid for show us victory, but don’t ask us to show you the full poll.’ Sure, folks,” Biden campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said.
“Even though we have 150 offices open with hundreds of employees in key battleground states, the RNC is closing offices and wasting money on legal fees,” she added. “Joe Biden has hit every battleground at least once while Trump has been in court or on the golf course. We’ll see how that translates into November.” “
Jonathan Allen reported from Washington, D.C.; Matt Dixon of Orlando, Florida; and Olympia Sonnier, Dasha Burns and Abigail Brooks of Palm Beach, Florida.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
