In the 1980s, the Democrats lost three presidential elections by failing on two key issues: turnout and fundraising.
Now, the Democrats are running in a very different environment, one marked by turnout records and increasingly expensive races — and President Joe Biden has found a boneheaded way to light millions of his donors’ money on fire in the South.
Biden has Democrats going back to their old failed strategy and applying it to North Carolina, a state carried by the GOP in every presidential election for the last 15 years.
As of June 7, Democrats had outspent Republicans on advertising in North Carolina by a nearly 4-to-1 margin, according to AdImpact data, and they have far more slots reserved between now and November. They also appear to have dedicated more resources to ground-level efforts such as door-knocking.
Canvassing was harder in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic limited in-person engagement, but Democrats are stressing it more this time.
Both presidential campaigns are prioritizing rural voters, and North Carolina has the second highest rural population behind Texas. In 2020, only 14 rural North Carolina counties voted for Biden; the state’s 64 others backed Trump. Only six North Carolina counties pivoted from Obama to Trump.
Still, rural North Carolina poses a serious political challenges for Democrats, whose voter registration numbers in places like rural Granville County are declining. Obama carried Granville twice, but rural counties in North Carolina won by Trump in 2016 saw the margins widen in 2020.
There’s a platitude in Democrat politics. It goes, “Texas isn’t a red state; it’s a non-voting state.”
There’s some truth to that. In 2020’s presidential election, Texas ranked 51st in turnout, behind every other state and Washington, D.C.
However, the Democrats are stressing turnout in North Carolina, a state with the 13th-highest turnout rate.
In North Carolina, the Biden campaign is working hard.. but not working smart.
He is currently trailing Trump by a massive 5.3 point margin, according to RealClearPolitics polling aggregate.
There are dumber ways for the Biden campaign to waste money… but not many.