To beat Trump, Biden 'must have' the Rust Belt — plus Omaha

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden's most likely path to re-election is a narrow one that relies on the same three states that gave Donald Trump the Oval Office in 2016 and then yanked it away from him in 2020 — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — along with a single electoral vote from an Omaha-based congressional district.

Put another way, if Trump takes any of the Big Three Rust Belt states in November, it is probably an indication that he has won back the White House. Less than five months from Election Day, they comprise the real battleground, according to many operatives in both parties.

"That's the must have," said Faiz Shakir, a Democratic strategist who managed Bernie Sanders's 2020 presidential campaign.

But it is difficult for any campaign to abandon states where the boss has won, or come close, before. That's particularly true at this point in the race, when campaign aides believe there is still time for their efforts to affect public opinion, and in an election year in which the stack of Democratic-held electoral votes has been reduced by a recent census. They also know that they can't force the opposition to spend precious campaign cash in states they have left for dead.

So, in addition to the Big Three, Biden's high command is deploying resources to Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, where he prevailed in 2020, as well as North Carolina, where Trump won by about 1.3 percentage points.

Right now, most public polls are showing Trump leading in those states by larger amounts than in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where surveys tend to be closer.

Biden aides say it is too early for triage.

"Today, we see across all those places a number of pathways" to reach 270 electoral votes, Dan Kanninen, the