Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale thinks the Southwest is the new Midwest

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube)

published 29 April 2019

The Trump re-election campaign isn't seeking a repeat of the 2016 general election, planning to win by holding steady in key Midwest battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Instead, they want to "grow the map."

In 2016, President Trump lost Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada to his opponent, Hillary Clinton. But the president's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said in a pre-taped interview on CBS News' Face the Nation, which aired on Sunday, that the campaign is focused on flipping those Southwest states, in addition to blue-leaning Minnesota and New Hampshire.

However, that appears to be a difficult task — all five of those states are still trending toward the Democratic Party. Indeed, even some red states in the Southwest and Mountain West regions are shifting their gears. But it was also unlikely that Trump's team could pull off a victory in Michigan and Wisconsin last time around, and they did just that. With Parscale declaring the re-election campaign "bigger, better, badder" than the 2016 campaign, it would probably be unwise to dismiss the plan at first glance.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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