PHILADELPHIA — As the days of the presidential campaign dwindle to a final few, the battleground of states up for grabs has expanded, with both the Democratic and Republican tickets on Friday pressing into territory once considered solidly in their opponent's columns.
No state represents the broadening playing field more than Texas, the longtime anchor of the Republican electoral map. There, the tightening polls and the explosive early vote turnout which has already exceeded the total vote of 2016 were enough to draw a visit from Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in a last-minute play for the state.
Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, continued the offensive push with a visit to Iowa, where President Donald Trump won by 10 points four years ago. But the former vice president will also make a rare visit to Minnesota, a once-solidly blue state that Trump has kept firmly in his sights, sensing possibility its large numbers of white and rural voters. Trump also plans a stop there on Friday.
Overall, the kickoff to the campaign's final weekend pointed to the incumbent president largely playing defense.
"It's a sign that the fight is in Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and Iowa now — states the president won anywhere from 5 points to 10 points," said Stuart Rothenberg, a veteran elections analyst based in Washington. "That tells you something absolutely."
The trend is set to carry over into the campaign's closing days, with both sides making stops in North Carolina and Georgia, as well as the long-established Upper Midwestern battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Trump, meanwhile, projected confidence that he would hold onto his wins from four years ago, telling reporters at the White House on Friday that he expected to win all of the states seeing a last-minute flurry of politicking.
"Texas is looking very strong," he said. "If you look around, Florida is looking great, Florida is looking really great. Ohio is looking great. North Carolina is looking fantastic, actually."
For Democrats, Texas represents the state most freighted with opportunity — and heartburn. For several presidential cycles, they have been tantalized by the state's changing demographics, only to be let down. If they wrested it from the Republicans, it would mark a monumental shift in the nation's electoral map.
Local politicians, including former presidential candidates Beto O'Rourke and Julian Castro, have been calling for the Biden campaign to pour more resources into the state. On Friday, they're set to join Harris to mobilize voters in McAllen, located at the tip of the Rio Grande Valley, an area that has typically lagged in voter turnout but considered rich with possibility for Democrats with its large youth and Latino populations.
"We have 38 electoral votes on the table, the opportunity to remake the electoral map for a generation or more," said Castro, the former housing secretary, who lives in San Antonio. "There's no reason that Texas shouldn't be treated with the same care and concern, politically, that Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania are.
That the Biden campaign sent Harris to the state struck Castro as a positive sign in cementing Texas' status as a battleground.
"The fact that Senator Harris is here just shows Texas is the biggest swing state in 2020 and that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have a realistic shot of winning it on Tuesday," he said.
Matt Mackowiak, a GOP strategist based in Austin, was less convinced that Democrats were making a full-fledged effort, noting that Biden himself was not there in the final days and the campaign has not ponied up for a statewide television buy — an expensive proposition in sprawling Texas.
"It's either a head fake or way to mollify top Democrats or donors, but it isn't a serious effort to win the state," he said.
Still, he acknowledged the fight for Texas is far more robust this year.
"It's close here," he said. "It's closer here than it's been since any time since 1976," when Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter captured the state.
Part of that competitiveness stems from the staggering numbers of early voters. As of Friday morning, the state reported more than 9 million ballots cast so far, surpassing the total votes there in the entirety of the 2016 race. Early voting in the state ends Friday evening.
Harris, speaking at her first campaign event in Fort Worth, marveled at those who turned out at 24-hour voting locations in Houston.
She said she saw pictures of people "standing in line at midnight ... waiting to vote," she said. "People are committed."
She blasted Trump and Republicans for trying to make voting harder, be it the president calling for his supporters to monitor polling places or efforts to undermine mail-in ballots.
"We have to ask, why do we think so many powerful people are going out of their way to make it so difficult and confusing for us to vote? And I think the answer is because they know our power," she said. "They know when we vote, things change. They know when we vote, we win."
Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas in Austin, said the soaring turnout can be attributed in part to Trump, who motivates voters on both sides of the political spectrum. "This is a referendum on Donald Trump and people are very eager to weigh in," he said.
But he also noting a whirl of action around the U.S. Senate race, several congressional seats and the Legislature, all of which has led to a cascade of new money and attention.
"Both parties are responding to a more competitive environment and pouring tons and tons of resources into voter targeting and turnout," Henson said. The energy around these down-ballot races "is also helping Biden to some degree."
Though Democrats may feel assured in their forays into Republican territory, the Biden campaign also dedicated some time Friday to playing defense in Minnesota, which has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972.
The Trump campaign has long seen opportunity in the state, which barely tipped toward Hillary Clinton in 2016, and the president has made multiple visits, including a planned rally in Rochester on Friday.
Biden downplayed any anxiety, painting the trip as a matter of geographical convenience.
"No, I'm not concerned," he told reporters. "We're gonna be in Iowa, we're gonna be in Wisconsin, so I thought I'd stop in Minnesota. I don't take anything for granted. We're gonna work for every single vote up 'til the last minute."
Biden's trip to Iowa was his first since he was campaigned against fellow Democrats before the state caucuses. At that stage his campaign was short staffed and cash poor and he came in a miserable fourth place.
He returned Friday as the front-runner in the general election, appearing before more than 200 cars at a drive-in rally at the state fairgrounds outside Des Moines, declaring as he took the stage, "Back at the state fair!"
Some of Biden's late-campaign travel to places like Iowa and Georgia, off the beaten path of battleground states, has been to serve twin purposes of helping not just his own campaign but also his party's fight to gain control of the Senate — an achievement that would make his position as president immeasurably stronger.
As he did when he ventured into Georgia early this week, Biden gave a big pitch for Iowans to vote for Democrats' Senate candidate. Theresa Greenfield is challenging Sen. Joni Ernst, and — like Biden — is making a surprisingly strong showing in the polls. He criticized Ernst for not knowing, in answer to a debate question, the price of corn.
"That's like my not knowing where the Delaware River is back home." Biden said.
He said to Greenfield, who spoke before him, "You have no idea how much you're gonna make my night when you win. You have no idea. And I'm going to make everybody else's night."
Biden also portrayed Trump as out of step with farmers, saying he could not believe a comment Trump made about aid provided to farmers hurt by his trade policies. He quoted Trump as saying that "our farmers are doing better now than when they had a farm. Where is this guy from? Who does he think he is?"
Trump also focused his attention on the upper Midwest on Friday, with rallies in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
"A vote for Biden is a vote to extinguish, demolish and wipe out Michigan's auto industry, and many of your other industries," he told supporters in Waterford Township, located halfway between Detroit and Flint. "A vote for me is to keep and create auto jobs and all sorts of jobs in Michigan where they belong."
