Trump team hopes to expand base to new states Democrats hold now, including Colorado

If the president can successfully make places like Colorado and New Mexico competitive, he would give himself many more paths to victory


Flush with cash, Donald Trump’s re-election team envisions a greatly expanded campaign map in which he’ll challenge his Democratic opponent in blue states he narrowly lost in 2016, including Minnesota, Colorado and even New Mexico and Oregon.

Trump’s campaign spent just $30,000 in Minnesota in 2016 and lost by only 1.5 percentage points. This time around, the campaign plans to pour millions of dollars into the state in order to win its 10 electoral college votes.

His campaign has also hired staff in Colorado, which he lost by about 5 points, and in New Mexico, which he lost by 8. The campaign had about $156 million on hand at the end of the third quarter, more than twice as much as Barack Obama’s re-election campaign at the same point in 2011.

“They certainly have more money to work with and early money and big money,” Ken Bickers, a political science professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said in a telephone interview. “He’s not having to spend it in the primary.”

Read more: https://www.denverpost.com/2019/11/01/trump-hopes-expand-base-democratic-states-colorado/