President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are focusing on six different issues, targeting 6% of voters in six key battleground states.
According to a report from Axios, the Trump and Biden campaigns believe the 2024 presidential election will be decided by 6% of voters in six different states, representing just 0.5% of the population. Of the six critical states, Biden won all but one in 2020, but polls now largely favor Trump or have him tied in every state but Michigan. Pennsylvania, won by Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, is believed by many to be the pivotal state in 2024. The opposing campaigns believe their best chance to win is to push three major issues each, that each is typically seen as stronger on.
The strategy means the election may well be decided by this 6-6-6 strategy.
Immigration
Since the announcement of his first presidential run in 2015, Trump has only intensified his criticisms of the direction Biden has taken United States immigration policy in recent years. Biden has struggled to bring together a definitive response, balancing concerns over border security and the passions of his progressive Democratic base.
Even better for the former president, the attention to high numbers of border crossings has caused the popularity of his policy proposals to skyrocket.
The formerly fringe position of wanting a border wall, which only 37% of those surveyed approved of in 2017, jumped to 53% support this year, according to a February Monmouth University poll. Other responses in the poll reflected the growing concern over immigration — 61% of people said illegal immigration is a “very serious” problem, with another 23% saying that it’s a “somewhat serious” problem.
An Axios Vibes poll released last month found that 51% of adults support mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
Stability
Biden ran in 2020 focusing on a message that Trump was a harbinger of chaos and destruction — a message that coincided with problems associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and a summer filled with the most destructive riots in American history.
Four years later, that message has been turned on its head, as Trump portrays himself as the figure of stability in contrast to the often violent protests and disruptions by left-wing activists around the war in Gaza.
Nevertheless, the Biden campaign still sees the message as a winning one, frequently stressing the alleged stability and moderation of Biden compared to the chaos and radicalism of Trump and “MAGA Republicans.”
“Peaceful protest is fundamental to American democracy, and has been a fixture of political conventions for decades,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Matt Hill said in a statement last week in reference to threats of potentially violent protests at the August DNC convention. “While Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans stoke political violence, we support the ongoing security coordination at all levels of government to keep our convention safe.”
Crime
Trump has repeatedly capitalized on fears of rising crime, blaming alleged “soft-on-crime” policies from Democrats. Violent crime soared during the COVID-19 pandemic and hasn’t yet gone down to pre-pandemic levels.
In certain cities like Washington, D.C., violent crime remains high. In October, Trump denounced the city as a “dirty, crime-ridden death trap.”
Abortion
Ever since the repeal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the issue of abortion has emerged as an Achilles’ heel for Republicans across many states and the biggest boost to Democrats. The newfound centering of the issue helped Democrats defeat an expected red wave in the 2022 midterm elections, an example the Biden campaign is looking to recreate in November.
Both Trump and Biden accuse each other of being extremists on abortion, with Biden usually emerging on top in polls on the issue. Trump’s strategy has largely been to avoid the issue, attempting to take a middle-of-the-road position when pressed.
Inflation
Inflation has become the central, and most visible, economic issue of the Biden administration. A Gallup poll released on Thursday found that the number of those who cited inflation as their top kitchen-table concern has hit another record high at 41%. Despite some progress since 2022, public perception has only gotten worse.
“The U.S. inflation rate has declined significantly since its peak in 2022, but that has done little to alter Americans’ perceptions of their finances. This could reflect the cumulative effect of higher prices for the past few years and the fact that inflation has remained above the lower rates in the U.S. between 2012 and 2020,” Gallup said.
The Trump campaign has been keen on pouncing on the issue, blaming the malaise on a variety of Biden policies and harkening back to promising economic figures from the Trump administration.
Democracy
Another hallmark of Biden’s 2020 campaign was bold declarations that the election represented a plebiscite on democracy itself. He’s revived this theme in 2024, arguing that the Jan. 6 riot was evidence that Trump was seeking to destroy democracy. He hammered the point home on the event’s third anniversary.
“Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time, and it’s what the 2024 election is all about,” Biden said in a speech commemorating the event. “The choice is clear. Donald Trump’s campaign is about him, not America, not you. Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power.”
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“Today, I make this sacred pledge to you,” he added. “The defense, protection, and preservation of American democracy will remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency.”
Trump, in turn, has repeatedly accused Biden of trying to destroy democracy.
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