Joe Biden, polling first among Democratic presidential candidates, said Monday that he thinks he will beat incumbent President Trump in 2020 in several deep red Southern states, including Texas and South Carolina.
“I plan on campaigning in the South,” the former vice president said at the Poor People’s Moral Action Congress at Trinity Washington University, which features 10 Democratic presidential candidates as speakers.
“If I’m your nominee I’m winning Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, believe it or not, and I believe we can win Texas and Florida,” Biden said. “Look at the polling there now … I have no intention of walking away.”
Trump trails Biden by ten points nationwide, according to a recent Fox News poll. A Quinnipiac University poll shows Biden beating Trump in Texas by four points, 48 percent to 44 percent.
“We have to stop letting these guys use the divisions that exist in the country as charlatans always do to divide the country,” Biden said at Monday’s event. “We have a guy in the White House who has turned that into an art form.”
“Our policies discriminate against and devalue black people, Native Americans, people of color, women and LGBTQ people,” he said.
Barack Obama’s popular right-hand man drew backlash from some Democrats for presenting himself as the candidate who would do best working with Republicans and convincing them to compromise. He assured Monday that he plans to fight as well as compromise.
“There are certain things where it just takes a brass knuckle fight,” Biden said. “You have to go out and beat these folks if they don’t agree with you. That’s what presidents do.
“You make an explicit case like we did for the House,” he continued. “I’d do the same for the Senate by making it clear to Republicans that on some things there’s a rationale for compromise.”