Donald Trump is Falling Behind Joe Biden in Battleground State Campaigning

President Biden's reelection prospects looked bleak at the start of year, but the 2024 race with Donald Trump has tightened in recent weeks as the Biden campaign ramps up early organizing in key battleground states.

Biden's recent bump in polling in the months since his State of the Union address, growing war chest and the campaign's ground operation has some Democrats increasingly hopeful about his odds of beating former President Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

"I'm cautiously optimistic," said Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairman Sharif Street. "Things look good," Street told Newsweek, but "we can't get overly excited."

Trump's campaign voices strong optimism of success and of having the resources to win the election, pointing to some recent polling showing him ahead in some key states.

But inside the Democratic Party, there's growing confidence a superior campaign operation could help Biden overcome historically low job approval ratings and persistent public concerns about his age and fitness for office.

The Biden campaign's staff and infrastructure advantage over Trump is perhaps most obvious in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin—three states that shaped the outcome of the last two presidential elections and will be closely contested again in 2024.

Last month, the Biden campaign announced plans to open 44 field offices in Wisconsin. The campaign has opened 14 offices in Pennsylvania, and announced plans to open 30 offices in Michigan. The Biden campaign also has senior staff in place and has run advertisements in all three states—and additional battlegrounds including Nevada and Arizona—as part of a broader television and digital ad blitz targeting Black and Latino voters and other key voting groups.

"As far as the ground game goes, Biden has the advantage" in Pennsylvania, said Vince Galko, a veteran Republican strategist in the state.

Josh Klemons, a Wisconsin-based Democratic consultant and founder of the digital strategy firm Reverbal Communications said "Biden has hired serious people to run his Wisconsin program. Trump doesn't have anybody here."

Newsweek could not establish how many field offices the Trump campaign has in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and other battleground states. In response to a request for comment on the campaign's operations in key swing states, a senior Trump adviser said the campaign would have the resources needed.

"The Trump campaign, after shattering records in primary and caucus wins in both turnout and margin across the country, has locked up the nomination in one of the fastest timelines in modern day political history," Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign and the RNC's chief of staff, said in a statement to Newsweek.

"We have the message, the operation, and the money to propel President Trump to victory on November 5," LaCivita said.

The Biden campaign declined a request for comment for this story.

Officials at the Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware have worked closely with state Democratic Party leaders to plan Biden's campaign travel, according to several sources, in an effort to maximize his time spent with voters outside of Washington.

A recent example was Biden's campaign trip to Saginaw, Michigan. The president visited the city last month after local Democrats and state campaign staff urged the national team to shore up support in a county Biden narrowly won in 2020, sources involved in the planning said.

The close coordination has yielded a battleground playbook for persuading Democrats and independents to turn out for Biden in the fall, campaign officials, state Democratic leaders and others told Newsweek. It involves boosting Democratic turnout while chipping away at Trump's hold on right-leaning areas, said Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman.

"Our goal will be to reduce the Republican margin of victory in rural areas, keep moving the suburbs from red to blue, and expand turnout and vote margins in blue parts of the state," Wikler said.

'The math doesn't work' for Trump

Recent voting patterns and demographic shifts could favor the Democrats.

Trump's victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 helped him win the White House, but he only beat Hillary Clinton in the three states by a combined 83,161 votes.

In contrast, Biden won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by a combined 255,425 votes in 2020, more than tripling Trump's margin of victory. None of the victories were blowouts. But Wisconsin, which Biden won by 20,682 votes, was the only one of the three states decided by less than one percentage point.

Biden outperformed Clinton in Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee, and also boosted turnout in smaller cities and suburban counties as well.

The showing helped overcome increased turnout for Trump, who received more votes in all three states—and nationally—in 2020 than he did in 2016. But while Trump's overall turnout increased, his support declined with suburban voters in swing states, and Republicans acknowledged the challenge of winning them back in 2024.

"There's been some deterioration in [GOP support in] the collar counties around Milwaukee," Brian Schimming, the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, told Newsweek, referring to the suburban counties around the state's largest city.

Other Republicans were more blunt.

"We've seen an incredible erosion of Republican votes in suburban areas," said Mark Graul, a Republican strategist in Wisconsin. "You can't trade one new Trump vote in a rural county for two [new] votes" for Biden in the suburbs, Graul added. "The math doesn't work."

Republican support for state-level abortion bans in the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade will add to Trump's challenges courting moderate suburban voters. Trump distanced himself from proposals for a nationwide ban on abortion this week, but many Republicans concede the abortion debate will drive turnout for Biden.

"It's not a winning topic for us," said one Republican official who asked not to be named for fear of angering the Trump campaign.

The Biden campaign has capitalized on the issue to boost fundraising in the first quarter of 2024. Democrats pointed to the fundraising as another bright spot for Biden at a point in the cycle when most voters still aren't paying close attention to the election.

The Biden campaign said it had $192 million in cash-on-hand at the start of April, after raising a combined $90 million in March with the Democratic National Committee. The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee said they had $93 million on hand at the end of March.

"Donors who were with Trump four years ago have walked away," Aubrey Montgomery, a Democratic fundraiser and pledged Biden delegate from Pennsylvania, told Newsweek.

Warning signs for Biden remain

Despite Biden's recent momentum, the 2024 election remains a tossup.

Biden has staked out a narrow lead over Trump in some national polls taken in the weeks since his State of the Union speech in early March.

But the president still trails Trump by a few percentage points in a majority of polls that include third-party candidates -- a warning sign for Biden that his support among some Democrats and independents may have slipped since 2020. Trump also retains a small lead within the margin of error in some polls in battleground states.

Biden may have a ground game advantage over Trump right now, but Republicans said the gap will close as the former president's campaign—and state GOP campaign efforts—ramp up.

The Trump campaign pointed to polls showing Trump leading Biden in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and a senior adviser argued Biden was behind in organizing in swing states.

"Joe Biden secured his nomination on January 1, but he's underwater in national polls and just now -- after three months -- staffing up key battleground states," LaCivita, the senior Trump campaign adviser, said in the statement to Newsweek.

Some Republicans argued that Biden's advantage in field offices and campaign staff was overblown. Trump ran a nontraditional campaign in 2016, with far fewer field offices and staff than Clinton, and still won the election, said Galko, the Pennsylvania Republican strategist.

"Trump's name ID and the fact that he just dominates the news cycle helps make up for that," Galko said.

Other GOP officials and strategists said a strong ground game alone can't hide Biden's low job approval rating. Just 40 percent of Americans said they approved of Biden's job performance in a March poll by Gallup. The number was up from 37 percent in a February Gallup survey, but remains low by historical standards.

At the same point in their first terms, the last three U.S. presidents who lost reelection—Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Trump—all had slightly higher job approval ratings than Biden, according to Gallup.

Questions about Biden's age haven't disappeared, either. Polls consistently show a majority of Americans are more concerned about the president's age than Trump's, who at 77 is just four years younger than Biden.

"Joe Biden's performance over the last four years has made a lot of people realize maybe [they] made a mistake voting for him the last time," said Vance Patrick, the Republican chairman of Oakland County, Michigan.

Lavora Barnes, Michigan's Democratic Party chair, said age won't be the deciding factor in Michigan or other battleground states. "In November [voters] are going to recognize the binary choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and they're going to choose Joe Biden," Barnes said.