Hot take; NC is not the easiest flip for Biden

[Blow by blow, the passion dies]

Great version

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

We don't need NC hot takes

[ProgressiveModerate]

Could be a difference between what is the "easiest" flip if he tried, and which comes the closest to flipping or flips by the most.

Yes. Imo NC is the most likely flip just because I'm more certain Biden and Dems will actually spend significant resources there. That however doesn't make it the easiest flip.

[ProgressiveModerate]

NC still has some very favorable trends for Dems. Raleigh and Charlotte are fast growing metro areas that might eventually more than offset losses in eastern NC.Some of the fairly rural western NC counties near Asheville also are 30% college educated, not the demographic to trend red.

Alaska could be interesting if Dems invest. A little bit of cash on ads could go a long way there. I don’t think Alaska will be bluer than NC this year but by 2028-32 maybe.

Yes, metro Raliegh and Charlotte have some great shifts for Ds. The issue is at best they are 35-40% of the state. Compare that to Texas where the 4 main metros make up nearly 75% of the state's population.

Another huge difference is that Dems have invested in Charlotte and Raliegh for quite a while; on the whole both metro areas have good turnout and Dems have fewer new voters they can realistically squeeze out - basically all additional Dem gains at this point will come from growth.

Contrast that with TX where metro Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio have some of the worst turnout in the Country, especially in heavily Dem areas. There are a ton of possible Dem voters that could be activated with just moderate investment and better ground game.

Also while I agree certain rurals in the far western part of NC have positive shifts for Dems, the impact that will have statewide is relatively negligible (though ig everything can matter in a close election).

[ProgressiveModerate]

Alaska is incredibly overrated for Biden. The state has had pretty much close to net zero population changes in the last few years. (I think it netted like 130 people from 2022-2023). Trump carried the state outright with 51% in 2016 and around 53% in 2020 means RCV wouldn't be an issue for him. The only way Biden can win the state is find a way to win over 2x Trump voters which seems pretty unlikely. Yes, Peltola will probably win but she is not comparable to Biden as she is more pro-Alaska on issues like guns and oil, where as Biden is touting the generic Dem line. Alaska is a Republican leaning state which could vote for the right Dem(Begich, Pelola) against the wrong Republican (Stevens, Palin) but it isn't going to vote for a DNC stock Dem.

If ME-02 can split their votes for Trump and Golden, I don't think its that out of the ordinary for Alaska to split ballots for Trump and Peltola.


I just don't know how Biden is going to carry Texas right now. If he couldn't take it in 2020 when everything was going his way, how is he going to carry it now when he is more unpopular than ever? He might improve in the margins but its still very unlikely he wins it. But let's just say for sake of example he does succeed and Texas flips blue. I'm pretty confident that the suburban areas in NC also shifted left enough for that state to still be bluer than Texas.

TX isn't flipping. Maybe maybe some campaign on rural health access to abortion could flip AK.

AK already has the most liberal abortion laws in the country under decades of GOP control. I don’t know that this is such a compelling issue there.

Yeah this puzzles me. ME-02 is probably just as pro-choice as Alaska, but no one suggests that the abortion issue will cost Trump that electoral vote.

I don't think you get my point; Alaska and Texas are both states where there are notable Dem communities with very low turnout. Even if Biden doesn't pick up a single Trump voter and loses ground on persuasion, my argument is that he could win the states just by activating those new voters. If you want to activate new voters, you have to actually spend money in the states. In the case of NC, both sides have already spent tons of money for over decade - the number of new voters you'll gain with additional spending becomes marginal, and in fact there is an argument to be made Rs have more voters they could feasibly activate in NC.

In Texas, Democrats haven't made any serious investment for decades, which is why spending now there would be so powerful. In Alaska, it's mainly just a case of the state being small.

A good example of a state where this has happened is Arizona - it used to be a low turnout state neither side invested that much in, albeit Republicans had a stronger state brand. After both sides saw it as a swing state, turnout skyrocketed; the fact AZ cast more votes in 2022 Sen than 2016 Pres is insane, infact Kyrsten Sinema 2018 got more raw votes than Clinton 2016.

In Texas, we actually saw something somewhat similar in 2018, the first time in a while Dems took Texas remotely seriously - O' Rourke received nearly 180k more votes than HRC. Republicans also have more votes to gain out of Texas, but because they've invested in the state for so long and already rely on higher propensity white voters, it becomes harder, it takes them more money to spend to increase voter turnout by the same amount as Democrats. 2020 Pres is a prime example of this; Republicans outspent Dems in the state by a factor of 10 and while it worked in certain communities like RGV and parts of Houston, Dems still gained more raw votes and the state trended left from 2016. Could you imagine what Texas would be like if Dems spent the same as Rs did?

[Mr. Ukucasha]

Not a hot take, it would be pretty surprising (although not extremely surprising) if Biden won NC.

[Burke Bro]

Can you imagine an 81 year old presidential candidate spending half a day flying across the rugged Alaskan wilderness in a 6 person plane, just to give a speech in a town of a few thousand people? Alaska is too far from other battleground states, too expensive, and even dangerous, for a presidential candidate to visit.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Can you imagine an 81 year old presidential candidate spending half a day flying across the rugged Alaskan wilderness in a 6 person plane, just to give a speech in a town of a few thousand people? Alaska is too far from other battleground states, too expensive, and even dangerous, for a presidential candidate to visit.

Investment is not necessarily have to be in the form of the President visiting the state. Run ads. Use surrogates. Talk about Alaskan issues

[100% pro-life no matter what]

TX isn't flipping. Maybe maybe some campaign on rural health access to abortion could flip AK.

AK already has the most liberal abortion laws in the country under decades of GOP control. I don’t know that this is such a compelling issue there.

Yeah this puzzles me. ME-02 is probably just as pro-choice as Alaska, but no one suggests that the abortion issue will cost Trump that electoral vote.

My sense with places like that is that they might vote for the pro-choice side in an abortion referendum, but they aren't really motivated on that issue or care much about it on one side or the other.  There are people who will vote in a referendum if they're already voting (and pro-abortion campaigns have done a great job making sure they vote for them), but don't actually strongly care one way or the other.  I think that describes places like Alaska, Montana, and ME-2 very well.

[Burke Bro]

Can you imagine an 81 year old presidential candidate spending half a day flying across the rugged Alaskan wilderness in a 6 person plane, just to give a speech in a town of a few thousand people? Alaska is too far from other battleground states, too expensive, and even dangerous, for a presidential candidate to visit.

Investment is not necessarily have to be in the form of the President visiting the state. Run ads. Use surrogates. Talk about Alaskan issues

But the cost of flying/housing/feeding surrogates and getting campaign materials out to remote areas is still very high. As is accessing remote media markets. If Democrats want to invest in a small state, Kansas and Nebraska are better options than Alaska. Both are states where left leaning voters are easy to reach because they’re concentrated in cities and suburbs. They’re also conveniently located in the geographic center of the country.

[Crumpets]

Can you imagine an 81 year old presidential candidate spending half a day flying across the rugged Alaskan wilderness in a 6 person plane, just to give a speech in a town of a few thousand people? Alaska is too far from other battleground states, too expensive, and even dangerous, for a presidential candidate to visit.

It's too dangerous to be a blue state!

[ProgressiveModerate]

Can you imagine an 81 year old presidential candidate spending half a day flying across the rugged Alaskan wilderness in a 6 person plane, just to give a speech in a town of a few thousand people? Alaska is too far from other battleground states, too expensive, and even dangerous, for a presidential candidate to visit.

Investment is not necessarily have to be in the form of the President visiting the state. Run ads. Use surrogates. Talk about Alaskan issues

But the cost of flying/housing/feeding surrogates and getting campaign materials out to remote areas is still very high. As is accessing remote media markets. If Democrats want to invest in a small state, Kansas and Nebraska are better options than Alaska. Both are states where left leaning voters are easy to reach because they’re concentrated in cities and suburbs. They’re also conveniently located in the geographic center of the country.

Fair points, but I still don't think NE and KS would be easier targets. They are still 3-4x the size of Alaska and Democrats base in both states is disproportionately higher turnout and propensity compared to the state at large. Republicans likely have more votes to squeeze out of Kansas than Dems because Dems in places like Johnson County already show up. Kansas is also a state where Dems have already spent a decent amount of money in for off year elections and 2020-Sen; the marginal benefit of spending additional money will start to weaken very fast.

[Burke Bro]

Can you imagine an 81 year old presidential candidate spending half a day flying across the rugged Alaskan wilderness in a 6 person plane, just to give a speech in a town of a few thousand people? Alaska is too far from other battleground states, too expensive, and even dangerous, for a presidential candidate to visit.

Investment is not necessarily have to be in the form of the President visiting the state. Run ads. Use surrogates. Talk about Alaskan issues

But the cost of flying/housing/feeding surrogates and getting campaign materials out to remote areas is still very high. As is accessing remote media markets. If Democrats want to invest in a small state, Kansas and Nebraska are better options than Alaska. Both are states where left leaning voters are easy to reach because they’re concentrated in cities and suburbs. They’re also conveniently located in the geographic center of the country.

Fair points, but I still don't think NE and KS would be easier targets. They are still 3-4x the size of Alaska and Democrats base in both states is disproportionately higher turnout and propensity compared to the state at large. Republicans likely have more votes to squeeze out of Kansas than Dems because Dems in places like Johnson County already show up. Kansas is also a state where Dems have already spent a decent amount of money in for off year elections and 2020-Sen; the marginal benefit of spending additional money will start to weaken very fast.

I think we’re already at a point where geographic self sorting has made expanding the map beyond the current battleground states impossible for Democrats. Democrats really got lucky in Georgia due to Atlanta’s single media market and its disproportionate share of the state population. North Carolina, Florida, and Texas require much more sophisticated and expensive operations than the one in Georgia. The latter two have also seen an influx of conservative leaning migrants due to the states perceived political climate.

[7,052,770]

Trump only won by about 35k votes - Biden could find those 35k votes if he really wanted to.

I can assure you that Biden "really wants" to win Alaska and every other state.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Can you imagine an 81 year old presidential candidate spending half a day flying across the rugged Alaskan wilderness in a 6 person plane, just to give a speech in a town of a few thousand people? Alaska is too far from other battleground states, too expensive, and even dangerous, for a presidential candidate to visit.

Investment is not necessarily have to be in the form of the President visiting the state. Run ads. Use surrogates. Talk about Alaskan issues

But the cost of flying/housing/feeding surrogates and getting campaign materials out to remote areas is still very high. As is accessing remote media markets. If Democrats want to invest in a small state, Kansas and Nebraska are better options than Alaska. Both are states where left leaning voters are easy to reach because they’re concentrated in cities and suburbs. They’re also conveniently located in the geographic center of the country.

Fair points, but I still don't think NE and KS would be easier targets. They are still 3-4x the size of Alaska and Democrats base in both states is disproportionately higher turnout and propensity compared to the state at large. Republicans likely have more votes to squeeze out of Kansas than Dems because Dems in places like Johnson County already show up. Kansas is also a state where Dems have already spent a decent amount of money in for off year elections and 2020-Sen; the marginal benefit of spending additional money will start to weaken very fast.

Not neccesarily Nebraska, but it's worth considering a play into NE-01. Relatively cheap media market, Trump+11 but trending blue and will probably be single digits this year. Good sneak attack flip oppurtunity for the Biden campaign.

[It's Time.]

Biden only lost NC by one point in 2020. And the areas trending towards Democrats in the state are way more populated and growing faster than those trending away from them.

So yeah it’s by far the easiest state for Biden top flip.

Again this kind of ignores the point; yes NC was the closest state in 2020 but it's a state that's been remarkably stagnant and would be hard for Dems to juice new voters out of. Yes, there are Dem favorable shifts in metro Raleigh and Durham, but a lot of the state has favorable Demographic changes for Republicans.

Dems have more ability to actually make TX and AK *trend* left relative to the nation if they want to.

NC votes consistently 6-7% to the right of the PV. So Biden needs to win PV by 6-7 to win NC. That doesn't appear likely at all.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

20 it flipped D while Biden lost the state it's proof that it's a 303 map due to fact Cooper won by 4 and Biden is losing to Trump

We can afford to lose only GA and NC because it's no S races but keep 290 with AZ due to S and win OH and either MT or NEB imagine that Osborne and Tester seat are gonna decide date of Filibuster

As I said before Trump +4  leads are illusionary because females like my sister don't dominate polls but men, females rather wait for Eday to vote polls are 60/40 Men whereas 303 states are the opposite 60/40 Women that's why polls aren't votes, red states there are obviously more Evangelical than blue states so men v women breakdown doesn't matter a whole lot

[ProgressiveModerate]

Biden only lost NC by one point in 2020. And the areas trending towards Democrats in the state are way more populated and growing faster than those trending away from them.

So yeah it’s by far the easiest state for Biden top flip.

Again this kind of ignores the point; yes NC was the closest state in 2020 but it's a state that's been remarkably stagnant and would be hard for Dems to juice new voters out of. Yes, there are Dem favorable shifts in metro Raleigh and Durham, but a lot of the state has favorable Demographic changes for Republicans.

Dems have more ability to actually make TX and AK *trend* left relative to the nation if they want to.

NC votes consistently 6-7% to the right of the PV. So Biden needs to win PV by 6-7 to win NC. That doesn't appear likely at all.

Honestly pretty remarkable given how much internal realignment has occurred in NC over the past 2 decades.

[mileslunn]

None of the states are likely to flip.  It is possible by 2028 Texas is more favorable to Democrats than North Carolina but not likely this time.  North Carolina is actually surprisingly inelastic meaning Trump probably wins it, but Biden comes within 200k votes and 2.5% as North Carolina is surprisingly consistent since 2008.  Obama only won it then due to record African-American turnout and getting around 97% amongst them which won't happen in 2024.  Some states have more swing voters while North Carolina has very few and most are firmly in one camp or another.  My guess is Trump wins state by 40K to 180K and percentage wise 1% to 2.5%.

Alaska has a highly transient population but type of shifts needed to win it seem unlikely.  I guess since few poll it a surprise could happen, but very unlikely.  Nonetheless of the 9 states that haven't voted Democrat since LBJ's landslide in 1964, Alaska is probably the bluest but still not really that close.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

None of the states are likely to flip.  It is possible by 2028 Texas is more favorable to Democrats than North Carolina but not likely this time.  North Carolina is actually surprisingly inelastic meaning Trump probably wins it, but Biden comes within 200k votes and 2.5% as North Carolina is surprisingly consistent since 2008.  Obama only won it then due to record African-American turnout and getting around 97% amongst them which won't happen in 2024.  Some states have more swing voters while North Carolina has very few and most are firmly in one camp or another.  My guess is Trump wins state by 40K to 180K and percentage wise 1% to 2.5%.

Alaska has a highly transient population but type of shifts needed to win it seem unlikely.  I guess since few poll it a surprise could happen, but very unlikely.  Nonetheless of the 9 states that haven't voted Democrat since LBJ's landslide in 1964, Alaska is probably the bluest but still not really that close.

ME 2 is likely to flip with Angus King

[TheHegemonist]

Frankly the problem with Alaska is that it's too small to warrant any investment. Only three votes at stake there. It's also not historically a swing state, the way New Hampshire is. Yes, they voted for Peltola, but there's nothing that says they would vote Dem in a presidential election. Spending money there, even small amounts, is at serious risk of being wasted when it could be spent defending states that voted for him in 2020.

I do agree that it's among the states most likely to flip to the blue column, but right now it just hasn't proven it's worth investing in.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

It's called split voting , you see Brown and Tester are overperform Biden the samething can happen in TX and NC downballot Ds doing better than Biden and Cruz is endangered because of Harris CTY