RealClearPolitics associate editor and columnist A.B. Stoddard broke down why Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign “has Sun Belt confidence,” in an election night interview on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.”
“The Biden camp has confidence in Georgia because of what Stacey Abrams managed to achieve when she ran for governor in 2018, just losing by 55,000 votes,” said Stoddard. “Since then, she registered 800,000 new voters, really pushing that state into a new electorate.”
Stoddard noted the record turnout in 2020 among African-American voters over the age of 65 in battleground states, including Georgia. NBC News classifies Georgia as a toss-up state, and it is historically red. Mitt Romney beat former President Barack Obama there in 2012 by almost 8 points. President Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Georgia four years ago by 5 points. The state is changing, however, and there is a growing affluent and diverse population in suburban Atlanta that puts it into play for Democrats.
Former US Representative and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams speaks at a Get Out the Vote rally with former US President Barack Obama as he campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden on November 2, 2020, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Elijah Nouvelage | AFP | Getty Images
Sen. Kamala Harris rallied voters two times in the Atlanta metro area, while Biden delivered his closing speech in Warm Springs, Georgia. Obama rallied in Atlanta yesterday.
Stoddard explained another positive sign for the Biden campaign in the South — the 600% increase in turnout in the youth vote in Texas by the close of business Wednesday of last week. Not only was it good news for Biden but also for “Democratic tickets all the way down the ballot, and not a good sign for President Trump.”
According to Stoddard, Trump and the RNC have effectively energized voters in Florida in a way that the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party have not. She pointed to the RNC’s effective messaging that led to 2018 when Republicans won heavily in the midterms, both at the Senate and gubernatorial levels.
“Cuban voters came out very strongly in 2018 but are now very energized about the issue of socialism and Venezuela, and they’ve [the Trump Campaign and RNC] been messaging that very effectively,” said Stoddard. “It is true that the numbers among non-White voters, especially Black and Latino men in the Miami-Dade area, have been concerning to the Democratic Party for months, because they are not energized.”
Stoddard said, however, the Biden campaign’s silver lining in Florida is that they are picking up senior voters “who are abandoning President Trump in droves.”
