Chris LaCivita, a key figure in Donald Trump’s third bid for the White House, believes there are many ways for the former president to win no matter who tops the Democratic ticket — and a very narrow path for Democratic victory.
“We have about somewhere between 20 and 25 different paths to [win] the election, just flat out, and they have one,” the senior adviser said at a Politico event in Milwaukee Thursday.
The consultant added that a “slew” of polls from Emerson, released Thursday, show the map is expanding toward a potential electoral blowout.
While the polling focused on Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all places where Trump is ahead and has increased his advantage recently in Emerson polling — LaCivita noted other states are also in the mix.
“I think we’re in a strong position to beat either one of them in New Mexico,” he said, referring to President Biden and his potential ballot replacement, Vice President Kamala Harris, if Democrats choose to “disenfranchise … millions of voters” for Biden in the primary and offer an 11th-hour replacement.
A big part of his confidence: If Harris leads the ticket, the Biden-Harris legacy nonetheless is a drag for her, as she has served as the “gaslighter-in-chief” and promulgated the myth of a vibrant and engaged president.
“I’m not going to cede this ground that you can talk about one without the other. If he steps down as a candidate for president, he’s admitting to the people of the United States he’s not fit, [he lacks the] cognitive ability to be the president. So does he want his legacy to be defined by the fact that he bailed after three years as president of the United States because he’s cognitively unable to do the job?”
Asked if Harris would present a greater challenge than Biden if Democrats pulled what he called a “coup” and installed the vice president atop the ticket, he said that “if they depose the sitting president of the United States as a candidate and they depose him as the president of the United States, that’s going to create a whole host of different issues” — but media would “give her a reset” to help her out.
LaCivita is only the latest Trump strategist to crow over the state of the race at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week.
Chief pollster Tony Fabrizio told Florida Republicans this week that according to “public averages,” Trump is “ahead by almost 5 points in Pennsylvania,” a “little over 6 points in Arizona and coming up on 7 points in Nevada.”
“And by the way, that’s not counting in the undecideds that will break to us. So right now we have a pretty comfortable margin in those states,” Fabrizio added, declaring purported battlegrounds like Arizona and North Carolina aren’t really “toss-up states.”
Trump operatives believe that besides the states previously mentioned, Maine, Minnesota and New Jersey are also in play.