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Trump zeroes in on 2020 battlegrounds
President Donald Trump’s campaign operatives and other allies have begun surveying the political landscape for his 2020 reelection bid, viewing a handful of upcoming midterm races as especially insightful to his strategic path three years from now. There’s been a flurry of activity in those states in recent weeks. Aides from Trump’s 2016 effort have signed on to work campaigns in Ohio and Florida, giving them footholds in two essential battleground locations. Trump himself has repeatedly returned to Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan, the quartet of Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states that helped propel him to victory.
And on multiple occasions in recent months, Trump has welcomed Republican committee chairmen from politically powerful states like Iowa, Virginia, Arizona, and North Carolina into the Oval Office for sit-down conversations about local problems, wishes, and upcoming races.
The stepped-up attention to 2020 is partly a recognition that dozens of Democrats are already seriously eyeing presidential runs of their own. But it’s also a reflection of the near-obsession with keeping Trump’s base voters on his side — a mindset which permeates the White House, said multiple Republican operatives and lawmakers.
What’s unclear to Trump-backing Republicans: the degree to which the president’s base support in the industrial Midwest is waning or holding fast; whether the young minority voters who failed to show up for Hillary Clinton after supporting Barack Obama will return to the next Democratic nominee; and whether the power of Trump’s political celebrity is wearing off.
They also don’t know if Democrats are at risk of losing unexpected battlegrounds that were closer-than-expected in 2016, or whether Hispanic voters will turn in greater numbers against the president after four years of hearing about deportation forces and a border wall.
Here are five of the 2017 and 2018 races that Trump operatives and allies expect will begin to answer these questions in the run-up to 2020: <more>
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