Thread by @admcrlsn

On the off-chance that they’re serious about this – and it’s not a head fake or a way of giving the anemic FL Democratic Party some hope – here's the case for why FL shouldn’t be central to the Biden campaign’s strategy in 2024 (and why TX is more worthy of their investment)

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https://twitter.com/PhillipJerez/status/1722743791822504424

It's very unlikely that Biden will win either FL or TX in 2024

If he does it's *extremely* unlikely that either state will be the tipping point for him reaching 270 EVs

Both states are growing rapidly & expensive

Both states have Senate races that are uphill battles for Dems

Due to highly effective GOP gerrymandering, both states also have very few (if any) competitive House races next year

Democrats are extremely unlikely to flip any state legislative chamber in either state in 2024

So, neither state has a particular edge on downballot benefit

Trump is all but certain to be 2024 Republican nominee (barring voluntarily dropping out or dying)

He's inordinately strong in his adopted home state of Florida – winning by 3.4 pts in 2020 and 1.2 pts in 2016

For comparison, Obama won it by 0.9 pts in 2012 and 2.8 pts in 2008

By contrast, Trump is inordinately weak in Texas. It's been trending blue since 2004, but it's accelerated during the Trump era -- from R+16.0 in 2012 to R+5.7 in 2020

He's especially unpopular in the suburbs of large metro areas (especially Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth & Austin)

Both FL & TX saw *massive* swings toward Trump from 2016-2020 in heavily Latino areas

Trump did very well in Southeast Florida (where the Latino population is roughly half Cuban American)

And he did very well in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (predominantly Mexican American)

It remains to be seen whether those were one-time flukes or if they're the beginning of a longer trend

But regardless SE Florida makes up a *much* larger proportion of FL's pres. year turnout (~30%) than the Lower Rio Grande Valley's proportion of TX's pres. year turnout (~4.4%)

So if Biden/Dems are unlikely to win either FL or TX in 2024, why devote valuable resources or time in either state?

Why not just laser focus on the key swing states of AZ, GA, MI, NV, NC, PA & WI?

That's a perfectly defensible strategy, but it's missing some medium-term upside

It’s hard to overstate how enormous an electoral prize TX is

Trends rarely happen in isolation (especially not in presidential years) so this isn’t really how it would work, but Rs would somehow need to win AZ, FL, GA, MI, NV, NC, PA & WI to reach 270 EVs if they lost TX in 2028

States like AZ & GA didn’t just turn blue overnight

It took years (if not decades) of tireless work for Dems to build up party infrastructure and turnout operations in those states, which finally bore fruit in 2020

Same goes for CO, NV, NC & VA when they flipped blue in 2008

And the TX Democratic Party…well let’s just say they have some room for improvement in being an effective political organization

So it'd behoove national Dems/allies to start investing heavily in the state *now* to even have a chance of flipping it blue in the next few cycles

Because once TX eventually turns blue it will be nothing short of a political earthquake

It’s possible that Republicans will be locked out of an Electoral College victory for a few cycles when that eventually happens

While Florida is also a big electoral prize, it appears to be trending away from Democrats (at least in the short-medium term – I haven't even mentioned DeSantis’ 19-point win in 2022) and it doesn’t offer the same degree of Electoral College lockout potential as Texas

And it doesn’t have the leftward sprinting suburbs to offset other potential losses that TX has

The Jacksonville metro is moving toward Ds, but Orlando & Tampa are at a standstill & Miami is sprinting right

Meanwhile Houston, DFW, Austin & San Antonio metros are sprinting left

Look – Biden & his allies will raise and spend billions of dollars. Realistically they could probably invest in both states as well as the core/true swing states

But IMO, making a play for FL at the expense of TX next year is a mistake. If anything, the inverse makes more sense

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