Will Florida, North Carolina or Texas be contested by Democrats in 2024

[Motorcity]

I personally do not think any of these three states will be seriously contested by Democrats in 2024

Florida seems to be getting redder and is large and expensive. Texas is also expensive and doesn't seem there just yet

North Carolina is the most likely state to be contested. But at the same time its only voted Democratic once in the last 50 years and Democrats still have room to fall with rural whites there

[Roll Roons]

To some extent, yes. Florida and Texas are pretty much the only plausible offensive Senate opportunities in a cycle where Democrats will be playing a LOT of defense, and all the state offices will be up for election in North Carolina.

[Bootes Void]

North Carolina is absolutely yes, Florida is a maybe(leaning yes)

[Xing]

North Carolina obviously will be, Florida probably will be (but to a lesser extent.) If Democrats are smart, they will aggressively target Texas, since Cruz is arguably more vulnerable than Scott, and there will probably be several House pick-up opportunities there that they should be able to capitalize on if they run a better national campaign than in 2020. Texas flipping or ending up very close would be devastating for Republicans, and Democrats should seize on this opportunity, but they don't always act logically, so they could easily make the facepalm-worthy move of prioritizing Iowa and Ohio over Texas.

[Utah Neolib]

They all will be, North Carolina more than the others.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It depends on 2022 if Crist and BEASLEY win

Gweyn Graham will be looking for a job outside of Cabinet come 2024 and can run against Rick Scott or Val Deming's can

[Chips]

Yes.

[MarkD]

Yes to all three.

Florida voted for Obama twice, and it voted for Trump the next two times by margins of less than 4%. It voted for DeSantis and Rick Scott in 2018 by extremely narrow margins.

North Carolina for vote Obama once, and the Republican margins since then have been 2.04%, 3.66%, and 1.34%. Democrat Roy Cooper won the Governor's race twice in a row.

Texas went from voting for Romney by 15.79% in 2012 to voting for Trump by 8.99% in 2016 to voting for Trump by 5.58% in 2020.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Why would they not target NC

[Tekken_Guy]

North Carolina, yes.

Florida and Texas are definitely reaches. But they could be contested solely for the purpose of winning the Senate seats. Scott will be easier to beat than Rubio and DeSantis for sure, and Cruz is far more vulnerable than other Texas Republicans. If either of them retire it’s another story.

[sting in the rafters]

My god, if Atlas was your sole source of election news you’d think Rs won Florida by double digits last fall. At this rate Ds will triage themselves below 270 EV/50 Senators/218 House Reps.


I don’t expect to win any of those 3 states however the incumbent advantage inherently means you should be playing to expand the map. Every dollar the GOP spends in Florida or Texas is one not spent in Michigan, PA, Wisconsin, or GA.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Yep, Rs don't have a monopoly on those states

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Yep, Rs don't have a monopoly on those states

[pbrower2a]

All three. North Carolina, which has much in common with Georgia, could be low-hanging fruit.

In Florida I expect Democrats to turn the "Castro" smears against Trump.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

All three. North Carolina, which has much in common with Georgia, could be low-hanging fruit.

In Florida I expect Democrats to turn the "Castro" smears against Trump.

You WARNOCK is trailing Herchel Walker 47/45 and GA was an R state since 1992, D's don't need GA which have voter suppression laws

Vernon Jones and Herschel Walker can be new elected officials in GA

D's don't need AZ but it's an Environmental friendly state due to Wildfires and McCain was pro Environmental friendly

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Yes, or at least they should.

Not contesting NC would be moronic, it leans GOP and hasn't really trended either way, but it's winnable. Ground game is key.

TX has Cruz, and I would argue that a split ticket is possible there, with the GOP presidential candidate winning but Cruz losing. The trends in the big cities needs to be continued, and we still don't know if the RGV/Hispanic GOP trend is permanent or an anomaly. Money spent there is money that goes towards taking down Cruz and picking up House seats, even if it doesn't translate to the presidential election. Downballot races are important! The House and the Senate are arguably more important than the President in the realm of domestic policy, and state and local elections can also affect how a party does nationally.

Florida does seem to be trending the wrong way, but like the RGV, we don't know if the South Florida trend is permanent or an anomaly born out of a weird election. Besides that, downballot races.

More than all of that, Dems can't be writing off states. Don't drop all your cash on difficult states, but as long as a state is plausibly winnable in the current election or within the next few, you should at least try to contest. The rust belt going red in 2016 wasn't a random event, the GOP had built their ground game in the upper midwest for years, until the right candidate came along and gave them the edge.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Yes, or at least they should.

Not contesting NC would be moronic, it leans GOP and hasn't really trended either way, but it's winnable. Ground game is key.

TX has Cruz, and I would argue that a split ticket is possible there, with the GOP presidential candidate winning but Cruz losing. The trends in the big cities needs to be continued, and we still don't know if the RGV/Hispanic GOP trend is permanent or an anomaly. Money spent there is money that goes towards taking down Cruz and picking up House seats, even if it doesn't translate to the presidential election. Downballot races are important! The House and the Senate are arguably more important than the President in the realm of domestic policy, and state and local elections can also affect how a party does nationally.

Florida does seem to be trending the wrong way, but like the RGV, we don't know if the South Florida trend is permanent or an anomaly born out of a weird election. Besides that, downballot races.

More than all of that, Dems can't be writing off states. Don't drop all your cash on difficult states, but as long as a state is plausibly winnable in the current election or within the next few, you should at least try to contest. The rust belt going red in 2016 wasn't a random event, the GOP had built their ground game in the upper midwest for years, until the right candidate came along and gave them the edge.

REALLY

D's don't need any of these states all they need is NV, NM, PA, MI and WI

[they don't love you like i love you]

Not targeting North Carolina at least would be stupid as hell. If you look at the precinct and swing results you'll see that Democrats have probably come close to the floor in rural NC (most of it has a significant black population), yet the Republicans have downright collapsed NOVA-style in some of their former strongholds. For example Cary (an affluent white flight overgrown suburb of Raleigh that's only considered a "town" in its incorporation yet has grown to a population of over 170k) voted for Biden by over 30 points! And the former GOP stronghold of south central Charlotte is pretty much all gone, even in 2016 Trump won most of this area, yet it had a double digit swing toward Biden, Biden even won precincts that look like this.

Furthermore, population trends benefit the Democrats and some that benefited Republicans have mostly halted. For example, Randolph County (an uber-GOP exurb of Greensboro), only grew about 2% in Census estimates...yet the aforementioned Cary grew over 25% with Wake County as a whole over 23%, and Mecklenberg County grew over 22%. This is as the state as a whole grew 9.5%. There's really not a whole lot of bright spots for the GOP in terms of NC demographics, even if the state has managed to take on a sort of "Titanium Tilt R" status now.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

There is likely to be buyers remorse in the S come 2022, that's why GA is leaning Red with Herschel Walker leads WARNOCK 47/45 there isn't even any polling on the Senate race and the NC Gov race Cooper is term limited and it's likely to flip back R in 2024

That's why NC will vote Red the Gov race in 2024/ is Likely R come 2024 because Cooper can't run for Reelection

[Literally Just a Contrarian]

I think North Carolina will be, but less so than other swing states. Florida and Texas are massive longshots and not swing states at all, but Dems will probably attempt to contest them.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Yes, or at least they should.

Not contesting NC would be moronic, it leans GOP and hasn't really trended either way, but it's winnable. Ground game is key.

TX has Cruz, and I would argue that a split ticket is possible there, with the GOP presidential candidate winning but Cruz losing. The trends in the big cities needs to be continued, and we still don't know if the RGV/Hispanic GOP trend is permanent or an anomaly. Money spent there is money that goes towards taking down Cruz and picking up House seats, even if it doesn't translate to the presidential election. Downballot races are important! The House and the Senate are arguably more important than the President in the realm of domestic policy, and state and local elections can also affect how a party does nationally.

Florida does seem to be trending the wrong way, but like the RGV, we don't know if the South Florida trend is permanent or an anomaly born out of a weird election. Besides that, downballot races.

More than all of that, Dems can't be writing off states. Don't drop all your cash on difficult states, but as long as a state is plausibly winnable in the current election or within the next few, you should at least try to contest. The rust belt going red in 2016 wasn't a random event, the GOP had built their ground game in the upper midwest for years, until the right candidate came along and gave them the edge.

REALLY

D's don't need any of these states all they need is NV, NM, PA, MI and WI

If all you want to do is maintain a razor-thin margin in presidential and senate elections, sure. But if one or two of those states fall, then what? And why not try to expand your majority? A 1.2% universal swing in 2020 would have re-elected Trump, Democrats can't afford to be lazy.

Parties need to grow, or they die. Democrats should learn a lesson from UK Labour. For years they took Scotland and the north of England for granted, didn't really try to expand, and now they're screwed.

[Adam Griffin]

Yes to NC. Maybe in TX. If we have any sense, then no to FL. And hopefully 2020 was finally the death knell for the "Don't Sleep on OH!" crowd.

The Biden camp almost completely abandoned FL in the early summer but there were enough CW politicos on the campaign/in the party apparently to pull them back from the brink of making a correct decision.

I don’t expect to win any of those 3 states however the incumbent advantage inherently means you should be playing to expand the map. Every dollar the GOP spends in Florida or Texas is one not spent in Michigan, PA, Wisconsin, or GA.

In the context of high-profile national campaigns at least, I really don't get this mindset. It also means that every dollar Democrats are spending in these states is one not being spent to defend MI, PA, WI or GA.

[Socani]

Florida: Not in this decade
North Carolina: Depending on the candidate.
Texas: I think Texas is not ready to flip to the Democratic Party, 2028 will tell us if TX will flip.

[sting in the rafters]

Yes to NC. Maybe in TX. If we have any sense, then no to FL. And hopefully 2020 was finally the death knell for the "Don't Sleep on OH!" crowd.

The Biden camp almost completely abandoned FL in the early summer but there were enough CW politicos on the campaign/in the party apparently to pull them back from the brink of making a correct decision.

I don’t expect to win any of those 3 states however the incumbent advantage inherently means you should be playing to expand the map. Every dollar the GOP spends in Florida or Texas is one not spent in Michigan, PA, Wisconsin, or GA.

In the context of high-profile national campaigns at least, I really don't get this mindset. It also means that every dollar Democrats are spending in these states is one not being spent to defend MI, PA, WI or GA.

Point taken. The classic example I think of is Bush 04 campaigning in PA to force Kerry to play defense because he knew was done without it. I think Florida without it the GOP is burnt. You know the situation down there better than me so if it's that bad then they should avoid throwing into the money-pit

Also with the trends in the rural big 3 Rust Belt states you're absolutely right they're gonna be a fight for every inch in 2024. PA/WI/MI are gonna be on a tight rope, up to Ds to increase their gains in Philly/Detroit/Grand Rapids/Milwaukee metros.

[JGibson]

YES to all three.

NC's a no-brainer, and FL and TX should be contested for the sake of downballot races.