As President Joe Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Downballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month.
Some polls in these states suggest a tightening race between Biden and former President Donald Trump, with one showing a virtual tie in Virginia, which has not voted for a Republican for president since 2004, and another showing Trump squeaking ahead in New Hampshire, which has been in the Democratic column since 2000.
On Tuesday, the Cook Political Report, a prominent elections forecaster, downgraded New Hampshire and Minnesota from “likely” wins for Biden to only leaning in his direction. And in a meeting at the White House last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico told Biden that she feared he would lose her state, according to two people briefed on her comments.
The shakiness in the fringe battleground states is an alarming sign for Biden’s hopes in must-win contests that were already expected to be close, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. An expanding battleground map could force his campaign to divert resources away from the traditional swing states, where he has been falling further and further behind.
But Biden has given no indication he is going anywhere, telling reporters at a high-profile news conference Thursday that “I’m determined I’m running” and pushing back on his poor polling numbers.
While presidential elections often produce a silly season of speculation about unlikely states flipping allegiances, seasoned Democratic operatives say there are legitimate concerns, even as the Biden campaign points to its overwhelming advantage in offices, staff and money across those states.
“I don’t think it’s fool’s gold,” David Axelrod, the strategist behind Barack Obama’s presidential victories, said of the idea that Trump could compete on a wider map. “I think it’s something that has to be taken seriously.”
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a Democrat, said that his state was “in play” this year and appeared more competitive than in 2020.
“There is still work that still needs to be done to shore up the party, especially around some of the noncommitted votes,” Walz said, referring to a protest movement against Biden’s Gaza policy that drew significant support during the state’s Democratic primary.
Still, Trump’s campaign has been light on the ground so far, limiting his ability to take advantage. In a June memo, first reported by CBS News, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee said they planned to open eight offices in Minnesota and 11 in Virginia.
With typical braggadocio, Trump has promised to compete even in New Jersey, a firmly Democratic state.
“President Trump is appealing to voters across the political spectrum, including in so-called blue states like Virginia, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and New Jersey, with his agenda to lower costs, secure the border, and restore peace through strength,” said Anna Kelly, a spokesperson for the RNC.
There is some precedent for optimism: In 2016, Trump barely lost New Hampshire and came close in Minnesota as well.
The Biden campaign has dismissed Trump’s efforts to widen the map, highlighting his lack of infrastructure and advertising. Campaigns sometimes feint that they are making a play in an opponent’s territory in order to force them to divert money from areas where it could be better spent, and most of Trump’s efforts have been directed at the traditional battlegrounds.
In contrast, Biden’s team says it has opened nearly four dozen offices across Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia, with hundreds of volunteers. In New Mexico, Democrats control the entire congressional delegation, the governor’s mansion and the state Legislature.
“This election will be decided by a subset of voters in a narrow set of battlegrounds, but only the Biden-Harris campaign is investing to reach and persuade those voters, with more than 200 offices and 1,200 staffers,” Dan Kanninen, the Biden campaign’s battleground state director, said in a statement. “We have multiple pathways to victory and won’t take any voter for granted in our campaign to win.”
Biden supporters on the ground say Trump has made few real inroads.
“As much as Donald Trump likes to ballyhoo and bluster about winning Minnesota, at this point he’s not treating Minnesota like it’s a real pickup opportunity,” said Ken Martin, the chair of Minnesota’s Democratic Party. No Republican has won Minnesota since 1972.
Kathy Sullivan, former chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said the Trump campaign had “an awful long way to go to try to catch up here.”
And Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., said it was “absurd to think that Donald Trump can win New Mexico,” which has not gone for a Republican since 2004.
A post-debate Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found the national race has remained close and relatively static, even though it showed that many Democrats wanted Biden to drop out.
But the tables have turned from just a few weeks ago when Biden’s team was publicly bullish on flipping Florida back to the Democrats.
“The debate really woke people up. It scared them,” said Peter Leishman, a New Hampshire state representative who endorsed Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. “There was already a feeling from so many people here that maybe Biden was a little too old, even back in the primary.”
The dynamics are different in each of the four possible battleground states. Minnesota, for instance, has a knack for voting for third-party candidates, while New Mexico has a large population of Hispanic men, a group that Biden has struggled to win over. But consistent across all four states are widespread fears about Biden’s age, unhappiness with inflation and electorates that are more closely divided than many national observers realize, according to interviews with local Democratic officials and strategists.
Brad Elkins, the campaign manager for Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., who is running for reelection, said his state was no slam dunk for Biden.
“Biden can win New Mexico, but all of the data I’m seeing shows that his campaign needs to make their case to New Mexicans to ensure that happens,” Elkins said.
One internal Democratic poll conducted before the debate found Biden leading Trump by just 3 percentage points in New Mexico. Behind closed doors, there is a fear that without a modest investment from the Biden campaign, the state could be a tossup, according to three Democratic political operatives who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to discuss the situation.
A Democratic strategist in New Mexico with knowledge of the campaign’s intentions, however, said there were no plans to dedicate significant staff or advertising dollars to New Mexico — in part an acknowledgment that if the state is truly competitive, Biden has most likely already lost the presidential race in the traditional battlegrounds.
Interviews with a dozen Democratic and independent voters in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a solidly blue city, showed a snapshot of the enthusiasm problem facing Biden. Most said they were rooting for a change at the top of the Democratic ticket, planned to vote for a third-party candidate or said they might simply stay home in November.
Patricia Benavidez, 46, a Democrat who said she voted for Biden in 2020, said she was now leaning toward Trump. A younger Democratic candidate, Benavidez said, might attract her more than Biden.
“After the recent debate, he doesn’t seem like he’s very capable,” she said.
In Virginia, Democrats retook control of the General Assembly last year, a sign of renewed dominance after a Republican, Glenn Youngkin, won the governor’s race in 2022. But even Biden allies there urged caution.
“As much as we want this to be a blue state, this is a deep purple state, and you have to give it some attention” said Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond, Virginia, who believes the Biden campaign is investing appropriately in the state. “You can’t take it for granted.”
Some party leaders have begun to worry that Biden could soon find himself playing defense even in a Democratic bastion like New York, where no Republican presidential candidate has won since Ronald Reagan. Biden carried the state by 23 points in 2020, and so far, the Trump campaign has taken no meaningful steps to contest it. But a reputable poll found Biden up by only single digits before the debate.
And a statewide survey in Oregon completed this week found that Biden had just a single-digit lead over Trump, according to results shared with The New York Times by a person who was not authorized to disclose them publicly.
In 2020, Biden won by 16 percentage points.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
