Rick Gates: Battleground Swing States Key to Presidential Victory

BATTLEGROUND SWING STATES

The Key to 2020 Presidential Victory

Campaign Analysis by Rick Gates, Trump 2016 Deputy Campaign Chairman

 

Suggested Host intro: The 2020 presidential race between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden continues to tighten. Several key battleground state polls are narrowing. Early voting numbers are at historic highs and proving to be a game changer in the run up to Election Day. The state of the election during this last week is monumental. Decisions made by both campaigns over the next seven days may ultimately decide who wins the election. However, in this last week there are several critical factors that are going largely overlooked and not widely being discussed. Joining us in this discussion is Rick Gates who was both the Deputy Campaign Manager for President Trump in 2016, and Chairman of the Transition Team from a campaign to governance in The White House.

 

Major Questions and Issues:

What happens in this last week of the campaigns? What are both campaigns doing during these last few days to prepare for Election Day?

• The last week of the campaigns is an epic game of chess but played at the speed of checkers. There is little time, and virtually no mistakes can be made.
• The campaigns have identified their paths to 270 electoral votes. Both sides go through best-case and worst-case scenarios of how they can get to 270 votes while preventing their opponent from reaching that crucial number.
• They are locking in ad buys, finalizing traveling schedules, going full-throttle on “get out the vote” efforts, but most importantly they are trying to find a “hidden gem” on the electoral map. What state has gone overlooked, or where the candidate is rallying to new highs. (In 2016 this was Michigan for Trump).

 

What do the early voting numbers really mean overall and in the key battleground states?

• The early voting numbers are historic. So are the new voter registrations. The initial predictions of voter turnout were at 65% (150 million voters), the highest in over 112 years. But this number is being adjusted daily as more voters exercise their right to participate.
• But what does it all mean? These numbers don’t shed much new light on who is going to win. Even in states where the early voting is broken down by political party it does not give us an early indication of the winner.
• In fact, when you look at many of the key battleground states including Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona and North Carolina, new Republican voter registrations, and early voting are actually up for Republicans which was unexpected.

 

Who is going to win?

• The race is extremely close. Don’t look at the polls. The current polls are flawed once again for two key reasons.

 

First, there is no way to gauge the largely invisible “Trump Factor” as we saw in 2016. This is the number of voters that will vote for Trump despite saying they would not. No pollster has the ability to remotely predict this number. But I believe it is larger than 2016.

 

Second, polls do not measure the precise level of voter intensity and this is critical on election day. Right now, even Democrats recognize that Donald Trump’s voters have a higher intensity factor. And this intensity factor will move some voters from Biden to Trump in the end. Clear proof of this is in the Trump rallies with tens of thousands, compared to the Biden rally at a drive-in movie, drawing about 200 people.

 

• In addition, even in early voting counts in the key battleground states, large percentages of voters requested ballots under “No Party Affiliation” which means no one has any idea how they voted. When this number is viewed with party affiliation breakout numbers, it erases any perceived Democrat advantage.
• The two key states that will be the real battleground test for both candidates are North Carolina and Arizona. The other states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin and Michigan are important markers but the outcomes of North Carolina and Arizona will show Americans who is likely to win the presidency.

 

 

About Rick Gates

 

Rick rose through multiple senior roles in Donald Trump’s campaign starting in March 2016, rising to Deputy Campaign Chairman. He was on the inside of Trump’s historic win both from a strategic and operational point-of-view. Following Trump’s successful election, he continued his service as the Deputy Chairman to the President-elect’s Inaugural Committee, and after, as a co-founder of the America First Policies Super PAC for the president.

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