Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is bullish about its prospects in solid-blue Minnesota and Virginia against President Biden — despite losing both states by wide margins in 2020.
“States like [Arizona], [Nevada], [Georgia] and [North Carolina], based on public polling averages, are clearly slipping out of Biden’s reach,” a Trump campaign official told The Post this week.
“States that should be safe Biden states like [Minnesota] and [Virginia] are now falling into play.”
Virginia was once a solid Republican state, voting for the GOP candidate in every presidential election but one between 1952 and 2004. However, the commonwealth has fallen into the Democratic column in every election since — a period coinciding with the growth of Northern Virginia’s left-leaning suburbs of Washington DC.
Minnesota is an even tougher ask for Trump, with the state having voted Republican just three times since Franklin D. Roosevelt won his first term in 1932. Dwight D. Eisenhower won the Land of 10,000 Lakes in both 1952 and 1956, while Richard Nixon also took Minnesota in his all-conquering 1972 landslide.
Trump, 77, lost Minnesota by 7.1 percentage points to Biden in 2020 and was defeated in Virginia by double-digits.
The 45th president put in a better performance against Hillary Clinton in 2016, coming up 1.5 percentage points short in Minnesota and losing Virginia by 5.3 percentage points.
“Voters see this race very clearly — Biden is weak, Trump is strong. Biden’s policies are a failure, Trump’s policies were a success and that’s why they are voting Trump,” the campaign official insisted.
The Trump team also pointed to internal polling showing the race tightening in both states.
McLaughlin & Associates surveys conducted for the Trump campaign shows him tied with Biden in Minnesota at 40%each with the inclusion of third-party candidates like independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (9%), Green Party Jill Stein (1%), independent Cornel West (1%) and libertarian Lars Mapstead (0.5%).
Without Kennedy on the ballot, Trump leads Biden 46% to 41% in Minnesota.
The RealClearPolitics polling average shows Biden leading Trump, 43.0% to 40.7% in Minnesota, but public polling has been sparse, with the most recent survey leaving the field a month ago.
In Virginia, the Trump-commissioned polling shows Biden leading 40% to 37% with third-party candidates included and leading 48% to 44% in a straight head-to-head matchup.
The RealClearPolitics average shows Biden with 46.3% to Trump’s 42.0% in the commonwealth, but polling has again been limited, with the last public survey leaving the field in mid-February.
The McLaughlin & Associates poll surveyed 600 likely voters in Minnesota and 800 likely voters in Virginia between Apri 29-May 1 via landline phone, mobile phone and text-to-web interviews.
The survey had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.4 percentage points in Virginia and plus-or-minus 4 percentage points in Minnesota.
The Trump campaign bid to expand his path to victory comes as Biden’s re-election campaign has also talked a big game about trying to make inroads in Florida and North Carolina — states that went for Trump in 2020 and are expected to do so again.
One source close to the Republican National Committee poured cold water on the Trump campaign’s optimism.
“Even Ronald Reagan couldn’t carry Minnesota. That state is fool’s gold for a Republican presidential candidate,” the source, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told The Post.
“Talk of Trump playing in Minnesota or Virginia reflects the difficult electoral map for Republicans and the shrinking number of battleground states,” the person added. “In just a couple of cycles we have gone from as many as a dozen battlegrounds to perhaps just three in 2024: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
“While they would like to expand the map and put Biden on defense somewhere, this seems to be more a bluff — an attempt to get Biden to spend time and money in Virginia and Minnesota in the same way George W. Bush forced John Kerry to spend time and money in Michigan in 2004.”
