Minnesota, which hasn’t gone for Republican for president in nearly a half-century, suddenly rates high on the GOP wish list. Arizona and Georgia, until recent years considered red-state locks, are undeniably within Democratic reach.
Democrats are engaged in shoot-the-moon speculation about Texas — the red citadel of the modern GOP — while Brad Parscale, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, views Colorado as a target despite three consecutive Republican defeats there.
Then there is the class of states that Trump improbably pried free in 2016 after three decades of Republican futility: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The president has made early overtures to all of them — on Thursday, when Trump appears in Wilkes-Barre, he will be making his fifth trip to Pennsylvania in less than two years.
“You could have a dozen states — not five or six — but a dozen states that are of significant importance and highly competitive from both sides,” said Paul Maslin, a top Democratic pollster who splits time between Los Angeles and Madison, Wisconsin.
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