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MACON, Ga.- President Trump held a rally in Georgia on Friday, 18 days before November’s general election. It wasn’t a good sign for him.
That Mr Trump is still fighting in a certain Republican state – and others that should be firmly on his column, like Iowa and Ohio – is evidence for many Democrats that Joseph R. Biden Jr. was a leader in the president’s race is solid and durable. Mr Trump also spent Monday in Arizona, a state that was once reliably Republican, but whose unpopularity has helped Mr Biden become competitive.
For some Democrats, Mr Trump’s attention to red states is also a sign of something else – something few in the party want to discuss aloud, given their scars from Mr Trump’s surprise victory in 2016. This is an indication that Mr Biden this could cause a landslide in November and land an ambitious and rare election campaign that some Democrats believe is necessary to dispel doubts – or disputes from Mr Trump – that Mr Biden won the election.
On one level, given the weeks and the breadth of public surveys that Mr. Biden shows with clues or edges in key states, such a scenario is entirely plausible. This possibility, however, runs into the political difficulties of achieving such a victory and perhaps even the psychological hurdles for Democrats to entertain the idea. Many think that Mr. Trump, who previously won a breathtaking victory, could make it again, even if there are differences from 2016 that hurt his chances.
One thing is clear: landslide presidential victories have become rare – the last big one was in 1988 and a more humble one in 2008 – and Mr Trump is still ahead of or working closely with Mr Biden in many of the states he has won in 2016, when the error rate is taken into account.
Democrats see flipping states like Texas and Georgia as the key to a potential landslide; Texas has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976, and Georgia since 1992. A poll published Tuesday by the New York Times and Siena College found that Mr Biden and Mr Trump are among the likely voters in Georgia.
“Until the Democrats win a statewide election, we’re not a purple state,” said Brian Robinson, a Republican political adviser in Georgia. “We can be a purpling state. But until they win, this is a red condition. “
It’s such a historic escape from Mr. Trump that some Democrats are increasingly believing the need to send a political message to Republicans, a moral message to the rest of the world, and serve a key logistical purpose: to win a clear electoral college winner November 3rd instead of waiting for a lengthy voting process.
For many, an imperative victory that also leads the Democrats to control the Senate would create the conditions for a consistent presidency, not just one that will drive Mr. Trump out.
“To move the country forward, they have to show that there are a lot of people with them and following their agenda,” said María Teresa Kumar, executive director of Voto Latino, an electoral mobilization group that Mr Biden endorsed. “That people want to be courageous about climate change. You want to address health care in a bold way. And they want to address education in a bold way. “
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She added, “The only way to get Republicans to find a spine is if it’s a massive turnout.”
For a party still traumatized by the ghosts of 2016, over-awareness or overreach are the last things most Democrats want to feel or project.
“This race is much closer than some pundits on Twitter and TV suggest,” said a memo from Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, last week. “In the main battlefield states where this election is decided, we will stay the same as Donald Trump.”
But even some Republicans have begun talking about a possible drubbing in a second blue wave that would lead Mr. Biden to a huge victory on the electoral college and help the Democrats retake the Senate.
Last week, a Republican, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, warned voters of a possible “Republican carnage” in November, earning the president’s wrath in the process. Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch has told friends he expects Mr Biden to win in a landslide, according to a published report he did not deny.
Mr Biden’s campaign has also stepped up travel and investment in states that were expected to be beyond the reach of Democrats – sending Jill Biden to Texas and planning events for Senator Kamala Harris and her husband in Georgia and Ohio before one Employee tested positive for coronavirus and their travel schedule was limited.
But perhaps the biggest sign of an expanded Democratic map are the signals emanating from the Trump campaign as he is in places like Macon rather than trying to consume resources in the states Hillary Clinton won in 2016.
The subtle change in the thinking of some Democrats – that the goal of Election Day should be not just to defeat Mr Trump, but to do so by a wide margin – is about setting the tone for the post-Trump era.
A crushing victory at the electoral college would result in an unmistakable rejection of Mr Trump’s political brand and minimize the effects of Mr Trump’s rhetorical war on postal ballots and any attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the election.
Mr Biden, a cautious moderator without the boundless charisma of President Obama, who portrayed himself as a transitional figure rather than a transformative figure, seems unlikely to lead to a political tsunami. He has opposed progressive litmus test issues such as the Green New Deal or the expansion of the number of Supreme Court judges.
Updated
October 22, 2020, 2:30 p.m. ET
But Waleed Shahid, a Justice Democratic spokesman trying to get left-wing Democrats into Congress by challenging more moderate incumbents, said his group was in favor of Mr Biden’s current positioning. The goal is to create a movement so big that Mr Biden has to change his thinking. That choice is the first step, he said.
“Lincoln was not an abolitionist, FDR was not a socialist or a unionist, and LBJ was not a civil rights activist,” said Shahid. “Three of the most transformative presidents never fully embraced the movements of their time, and yet the movements won because they organized and shaped public opinion.”
He added, “A big victory would help give the Democrats an even bigger mandate to rule through bold policies that have not been seen since the FDR and LBJ era.”
And Mr. Biden, despite his low-key style, has shown signs of thinking big. Finally, in the primary, he promised not only to win Mr. Trump but “beat like a drum” and restore the “soul of the nation” by resolutely opposing the white complaint policy adopted by the administration.
Jon Ossoff, the Democratic candidate in one of two highly competitive Senate races in Georgia, said he appreciated Mr Biden’s larger investment in the state. He argued that winning Democrats in the state would represent more than one extra Senate seat or 16 votes in a presidential election, but would break the Republican vice grip in the south and repel the “southern strategy” of racial division that has been maintained in the region since Firmly Republican for decades.
A victory, said Mr Ossoff, would prove: “It is no longer possible to separate southerners according to race in order to win elections. Because there will be a multiracial coalition calling for more progressive leadership. “
In a recent interview, former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke made a similar case regarding his home state of Texas.
“Texas, more than any other state, has the option to choose this on election night,” he said. “And what would be so powerful, and have so much political and poetic justice, would be if the most electoral oppressed state in the Union emerged with such a diverse electorate in the greatest number that Joe Biden overran.”
The past two weeks have also sparked a particular surge of optimism among Democratic political activists, based on Mr Trump’s erratic performance in the first debate and Mr Biden’s growing lead in amassing financial resources for the campaign finale.
On Friday, a group of progressives launched a new Super PAC for the final stretch of the campaign and invested $ 2.5 million to turn Georgia around. The group called New South had a clear message to Mr Biden and the Democrats: the future of the party is here and the time to embrace it is now.
“Georgia has two Senate races, we have a chance to win the polls for Biden and Harris, and we can put the State House in the crucial reallocation,” said Ryan Brown, who heads the group. “Both the stakes and opportunities of the Georgia elections this year deserve our attention and this large-scale investment.”
However, voters from both parties reflect the moderate expectations that have shaped 2016 and Georgia’s political history.
Mr Robinson, the Republican agent, said he believed the polls overrated the Democratic constituencies.
“We have seen polls for years that show Democrats are tied or ahead by mid-October,” Robinson said. “The media gets nervous and the Democrats get confidence and then the Republicans win.”
He said: “If the polls in Georgia are a tie, it means the Republicans win.”
Dennis Jackson, a 58-year-old Democrat who had voted in Atlanta the day before Mr Trump’s rally shared Mr Robinson’s skepticism after the heartbreak of the 2016 election and the governor’s race in 2018 when Stacey Abrams, former State House minority leader and Democratic candidate, lost by a narrow margin to Republican Brian Kemp .
“More people are getting involved,” said Jackson, “but some people don’t know how to do it.” I do.”
Jonathan Martin contributed to coverage from Washington.
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