Julie C. Rodríguez
Posted: March 21, 2024
From day one, the Biden-Harris campaign has firmly believed this race will be won on the ground across key states that are core to our multiple pathways to 270. As we enter the general election, we have multiple clear paths to victory through a number of critical swing states.
At the center of those pathways are three key regions of the country: the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, western battlegrounds like Nevada and Arizona, and southern states like Georgia and North Carolina. We also aren’t taking any state or any vote for granted and are building strong teams to shore up important building block states to 270 such as Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New México, and Virginia, while expanding the map in places like Florida and Texas.
Following the State of the Union, our campaign launched a month of action designed to engage and mobilize voters and volunteers in the fight for the soul of the nation. As part of that work, President Biden has been traveling the country meeting members of our coalition in each of the battleground states, including visits to Pennsylvania and Georgia in the days after the speech and last week’s travel to Michigan and Wisconsin. The president will spend this week in the Sun Belt states of Nevada and Arizona – diverse, pro-choice states that are gaining hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs thanks to the president’s policies.
In both states, we’re building robust campaign infrastructure to meet voters where they are and to engage the broad coalition of voters who powered President Biden’s victory in 2020 and Democrats’ wins up and down the ballot during the 2022 midterms.
President Biden will spend time in perennial swing counties Washoe and Maricopa, where Democrats, independents, and moderate Republicans have powered our victories in recent elections. With abortion on the ballot in both Nevada and Arizona, new, good-paying jobs to tout in clean energy and chips manufacturing, and organized labor behind us, the Biden-Harris campaign is in a strong position to continue to win these voters across the Southwest. Meanwhile, Republicans in both states are deeply divided and far behind in shoring up their party apparatus as Trump and his MAGA allies remain fixated on election denialism and toxic abortion bans that continue to alienate the voters they need to win back after losing in 2018, 2020, and 2022.
Building the Campaign Infrastructure to Win
Capitalizing on the new, first in the West primary, the Biden-Harris campaign in Nevada is building the infrastructure necessary to communicate with voters across the state and win, engaging the key constituency groups who will power our victory in November, including AANHPI, Latino, Black, Native American, young, and women voters. The Democratic coordinated campaign is opening offices in North, East, and Southwest Las Vegas, in the heart of the communities we need to win, as well as Washoe County, and we’re building campaign infrastructure to engage voters in all parts of the state – not just in Las Vegas and Reno.
In Arizona, the Biden-Harris campaign, Democratic National Committee, and state party spent the fall and winter putting bilingual relational organizers on the ground and opening offices earlier than ever before, including our first field office of the cycle in Maryvale, a significant Latino community in Phoenix. This program is helping us ramp up our organizing efforts and ensure volunteers and supporters tap their own networks to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.
Across Nevada and Arizona we will have more than 40 staffers on the ground by the end of March. This follows critical investment during the 2022 midterm elections, when – at President Biden’s direction – the DNC more than tripled its investment over the 2018 election cycle and was one of the largest investors in the coordinated campaign in these two states. In total, Democrats’ midterm operation included more than 180 total staff, including staff focused on organizing (particularly in communities of color and tribal communities), data, communications, and voter protection. This robust investment not only powered Democrats up and down the ballot to victory, it created lasting infrastructure and a staff talent pool for the campaign to tap into from day one of this cycle.
We also built out our volunteer capacity: In the 2022 cycle, there were over 16 million calls, texts, and doors knocked in Nevada and Arizona to recruit volunteers and register, persuade, and mobilize for Democrats up and down the ballot. These volunteers continue to be engaged and ready to mobilize ahead of November.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign and RNC have sparse staff and are falling far behind in opening offices in Nevada and Arizona, with their national committees and PAC bleeding money. After paying for legal bills related to their fake electors scheme, the Arizona GOP has said they “desperately need to keep the lights on.”
Communicating Early With Key Voting Blocs Where They Are
Both Nevada and Arizona represent the diverse coalition of voters who elected Joe Biden president in 2020, including Latino, Black, AANHPI, and Native American voters. We’re investing early to reach these voters and highlight the Biden-Harris administration’s work to bring down costs, create good-paying jobs, and keep their families safe – rather than treating them as base voters to engage at the last minute.
Highlighting the Contrast on the Issues That Matter Most to Western Voters
Nevada and Arizona are gaining hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs thanks to President Biden’s policies and both states overwhelmingly agree with the Biden-Harris administration’s proposals to fix our broken immigration system and secure the border. At the same time, Donald Trump is far out of step with the majority of voters in these states with his plans to ban abortion nationwide and create chaos by spreading lies about the 2020 election.
Creating Millions of Jobs and Standing With Unions: Nevada’s manufacturing working base has grown to an all-time high and Arizona is doubling its semiconductor workforce under President Biden. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is promising to repeal the landmark law bringing clean energy jobs to these states.
Nevada is one of the most union-dense states in the nation, and these unions are growing and benefiting as a result of President Biden’s policies. Organized labor in the state is mobilizing behind President Biden, the most pro-union president in history, to defeat Donald Trump, who took unprecedented action to undermine organizing and collective bargaining as president.
Ground Zero for Trump’s Election Lies & Attacks on Democracy: In both Nevada and Arizona, Trump’s election denialism has become the primary plank of the Republican Party platform. Trump’s allies in Arizona launched the infamous election audits after this loss in 2020, and the state Republican Party in Nevada is run by Trump’s indicted fake electors. Democrats, independents, and moderate Republicans have come together to defeat the far-right candidates in these states who have parroted Trump’s lies, including Kari Lake, Trump’s 2020 Nevada campaign co-chair Adam Laxalt, and the election deniers who ran for secretary of state in 2022.
Securing the Border and Fixing Our Broken Immigration System: After inheriting a broken immigration system from Donald Trump, President Biden negotiated the toughest and fairest reforms to secure the border in decades – only for Donald Trump to tell his MAGA Republican allies to block these efforts to help Trump politically. On day one, the Biden-Harris administration sent Congress a plan to invest in more effective border security, which more than two thirds of all voters support, and provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. The American people back President Biden’s efforts, and a bipartisan majority oppose Trump’s cruel policies like separating kids from their parents.
Abortion Access Is on the Ballot: An overwhelming majority of Nevadans and Arizonans support a woman’s right to choose, and both states will have ballot initiatives in 2024 to give voters the opportunity to protect abortion access in their state’s constitution. While Trump pushes a national abortion ban, his MAGA Republican allies in both states continue to attack women’s freedoms, blocking efforts to protect birth control in Arizona just last week and arguing women should instead “put [aspirin] between [their] knees.”
Bottom line: Across the Southwest, Donald Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda have taken over the Republican Party establishment, causing deep divisions among traditional GOP voters and an opening for Democrats that has increasingly become a trendline. When it comes to campaign infrastructure and the issues that matter most to voters, the Biden-Harris campaign has a clear advantage, and we will continue to invest heavily in these states that play a clear role in our multiple pathways to victory.
Julie C. Rodríguez is the Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign Manager.
