President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects largely hinge on the so-called Blue Wall, a trio of industrial states that offer the ultimate test for his message of a manufacturing revival.
In Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, his campaign sees signs for optimism, even as recent polling shows Biden trailing presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump in those key battlegrounds.
The Biden campaign says it ranks no swing state above another — and is focusing on all of them keep open multiple paths to get to 270 Electoral College votes. It has ramped up sharply, doubling its battleground state staffing this month.
But unique factors in those one-time Blue Wall bastions – from demographics to the presence of well-placed allies – position them as his best shot at holding the White House. Biden can clinch a victory with their electoral votes even if he loses four other crucial swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.
The Blue Wall states had long voted for Democrats in presidential contests before Trump won all three in 2016. Biden then swept them in 2020 and has traveled repeatedly to them since, including Thursday’s visit to Saginaw, Michigan, suggesting a heavy focus on keeping them in his column.
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are dotted with the kinds of small cities and manufacturing centers that Biden has long begged his party to not forget. Michigan and Pennsylvania in particular are also organized labor strongholds where the president – who appeared on an autoworker picket line last year – can hammer his oft-repeated message that unions built the middle class.
At the same time, Biden has a major cash advantage over Trump and is painstakingly linking efforts in those three states with their state-level parties.
“The tactical advantage we are building in states we know are going to be razor close — we have that, they do not,” said Dan Kanninen, the Biden campaign’s…
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