Former President Donald Trump is making a bold push into two states once written off as blue, opening a combined 19 field offices in Virginia and Minnesota with the 2024 presidential election less than five months away.
The Trump campaign confirmed to Fox News that it is expanding operations in the two states that have voted reliably Democrat in recent presidential elections. The Trump campaign is in the process of securing leases for eight Trump Force 47 field offices in Minnesota and another 11 in Virginia, according to a Trump campaign memo obtained by Fox News on Friday.
Staff have already been hired to manage each state, and the campaign is currently working to build out teams to work each field office in favor of the former president.
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In its memo, the campaign noted that "collateral materials will land in early July in both states, and we’ve already begun to generate Trump Force 47 Captain recruits to get them into training."
The Trump campaign, which views both Minnesota and Virginia as competitive in the upcoming election, aims to flip both states as it pushes to expand the 2024 electoral map.
At a closed-door Republican National Committee retreat for top-dollar donors earlier this spring at a resort in Palm Beach, Florida, senior Trump campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita and veteran pollster Tony Fabrizio spotlighted internal surveys that suggested both "Minnesota & Virginia are clearly in play."
"In both states, Donald Trump finds himself in positions to flip key electoral votes in his favor," the survey, which was shared with Fox News, emphasizes.
It's been two decades since a Republican carried Virginia in the race for the White House – the last time being when then-President George W. Bush won the Commonwealth in his 2004 re-election victory.
But recent polling indicates a close contest in Virginia.
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A Fox News poll conducted June 1 to 4 indicates the Democratic president and his Republican predecessor in the White House each with 48% support in a head-to-head match.
A Republican hasn't carried Minnesota in a presidential election since President Richard Nixon's 1972 landslide re-election, over a half-century ago. It was the only state President Reagan lost in his 1984 re-election landslide.
But a recent poll in Minnesota showed a competitive race between Biden and Trump in their 2024 election rematch. The president stands at 45% support among likely voters in Minnesota, with Trump at 41% in a poll conducted June 3 to 5 for the Star Tribune, MPR News and KARE 11.
Trump was narrowly edged in Minnesota in the 2016 election by 1.5 points by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. But four years later, Biden carried the state by seven points as he defeated Trump and won the White House.
"We’re going to win this state," Trump predicted last month in a speech as he headlined the state GOP's annual Lincoln Reagan fundraising dinner in St. Paul, Minnesota's capital city.
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The poll pointed to a significant enthusiasm gap, with 63% of Trump supporters saying they were "very enthusiastic" about casting a ballot for their candidate, compared to 31% of voters backing the president.
