It wasn’t that long ago when Democrats used to compete in Florida in the hunt for 270 Electoral College votes.
But Joe Biden’s team isn’t making any bones about it. Florida is out.
That’s according to Jen O’Malley Dillon, chairwoman of Biden’s reelection campaign, in a recent conversation with Puck’s John Heilemann.
The veteran reporter pressed Dillon on six battleground states this year — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia — and whether other states will be in play for a potential victory.
From the interview:
Heilemann: If you boil it down, what you’re saying is that 2020 was a national election; there were battleground states, but you ran the campaign like a national referendum on Trump. But in 2024, you’re running a half-dozen targeted state campaigns—which gets us to the topic of your paths to victory. I named six states. You’d agree those are battlegrounds, yes?
Dillon: Yes.
Heilemann: And you’re saying you see North Carolina also as a battleground state?
Dillon: Yes.
Heilemann: Florida?
Dillon: No.
Heilemann: Thank you. I was afraid you were going to lie.
Trump, who now lives in Florida full time, won there in 2020 by a 3.4-point margin, up from the 1.2 points against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Democrats used to have an edge in Florida among registered voters, but that number was flipped on its head after Republicans gained nearly 6,000,000 registered voters a year ago compared to Democrats’ 4.6 million.
Republicans have far outperformed Democrats in registering new voters in recent years. In 2016, Democrats had about 327,000 more registered voters than Republicans.
In 2022, Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis won reelection in a landslide by more than 29 percentage points. And in a major blow to Democrats on election night, DeSantis won the reliably blue Miami-Dade County, the first Republican to do so in two decades.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MatthewArco.
