Seven states and events miles apart: How the Trump and Biden campaigns approach a rematch

By BILL BARROW and WILL WEISSERT (Associated Press)

ATLANTA (AP) — Joe Biden and Donald Trump each won the White House by razor-thin margins in key states.

Now, with a reprise of their bitter 2020 campaign all but officially set after Super Tuesday, the two campaigns are unveiling their strategies for a matchup between a president and his immediate predecessor.

Both campaigns will fight the hardest in seven battleground states, five of which flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden four years ago. Biden’s reelection campaign claims a jump on hiring staff and targeting swing-state voters. Trump campaign officials finalized a takeover of the Republican National Committee this week and are looking to expand their field operation.

Biden and Trump will each hold events in Georgia on Saturday, a week after they did simultaneous U.S.-Mexico border trips in Texas. That’s a reflection of how closely their campaigns will bump up against each other but also how they will work for votes differently. Biden will be in metro Atlanta, home to a fast-growing and diverse population. Trump will visit rural northwest Georgia and the district of Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a firebrand conservative discussed as a possible running mate.

In a statement Tuesday night, Biden blistered Trump, saying the former president is “driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution” and “determined to destroy democracy, rip away fundamental freedoms like the ability for women to make their own health care decisions and pass another round of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy.”

Trump has spent months skewering Biden for inflation, an uptick in migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, crime in U.S. cities and the wars in Ukraine and Israel. “This is a magnificent country and it’s so sad to see where it’s gone,” he said Tuesday night. “We’re going to straighten it out.”