Trump heads to Georgia as 'lights are flashing red' in state he won easily in 2016 - Analysis

'His political demise has been greatly exaggerated. Biden's in a good place, but Trump can still win this thing,' GOP strategist says

Donald Trump heads to Georgia on Wednesday for the ninth time, but the first as the underdog in the 2020 presidential race.

The president won the state by 5 percentage points in 2016, but several polls taken since late June show him in a dead heat with former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

The swing in the Peach State is part of a broader trend in some states Mr Trump won rather easily last time. Each shows a 5-point to 10-point swing away from the president. That means his campaign already is spending money in places it did not expect, and Mr Trump will need to visit those places plenty before Election Day -- likely taking him away from the six or seven expected swing states his campaign initially targeted.

Where his 2016 campaign was a start-up, his re-election bid is turning into something of a reclamation project.

"The trip tells you that the triple whammy of virus, the slowed-down economy and the social unrest has really taken a toll. ... It's more of an official visit this time, but there's the president and his team would have to be completely unrealistic to not think Georgia is in play right now," said one Republican strategist.

The tables turned in Georgia on the president sharply since the coronavirus outbreak began.

An University of Georgia survey completed on March 2 put him up 8 percentage points over Mr Biden, just as the former VP was solidifying himself as the presumptive Democratic nominee. But two polls, conducted by Public Policy Polling and Fox News, from late June gave Mr Biden a 2-point and 4-point lead there, respectively.

"There's no question all the lights are flashing red, at this moment at least, for the Trump campaign," said Bill Galston, a former Clinton White House aide now with the Brookings Institution. "Biden is doing well in places that six months ago, people thought he might not have a chance."

The president is headed to Atlanta ostensibly to announce the easing of regulations that his administration contends will clear the way for infrastructure projects in the Peach State. In so doing, he will be touting his second-term agenda for overhauling the country's infrastructure -- something on which he ran four years ago, only to fail to reach anything close to a deal with just about anyone, Republican or Democrat, on Capitol Hill.

A list of polls show nearly two-thirds of all Americans want Washington to cut a massive check for new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and other things. The issue also is popular among older voters, a voting bloc Mr Trump won four years ago but has steadily lost during his term.

'All politics, all the time'

"From Trump's perspective, the most important group is seniors," the GOP strategist said. "There is a reason why Joe Biden is doing well with seniors: they don't see him as being as toxic as Hillary Clinton. They're not afraid of him like with her."

Still, White House aides are dismissing the notion that the trip should be viewed like a campaign stop on the taxpayer dime. And experts say they have a point about Atlanta, where he will tour and speak at a UPS facility.

For one, the Georgia capital also is widely considered the capital of the South. It is a major player in the financial, energy, tourism and automotive sectors.

"I can think of three or four other reasons than re-election that might take any president to Georgia," Mr Galston said. "But with this president, it is all politics, all the time. Although the president is not indifferent to GOP candidates he likes, he cares more about his own prospects."

Also on the ballot in November are the states two US senators, a rarity. GOP Senator David Perdue has been a Trump ally since the president was a candidate and fellow-Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler has been a reliable vote since taking office this year. (Ms Loeffler is expected to travel to Atlanta on Air Force One and Mr Perdue is slated to be by the president's side after meeting him there.)

'Greatly exaggerated'

Though the mere visit suggests Mr Trump now anticipates a fight to keep the Peach State red, the Republican strategist and Mr Galston caution against ruling him out.

"His political demise has been greatly exaggerated," the strategist said. "Biden's in a good place, but Trump can still win this thing."

One way he helped salvage some Republican-held House seats in the 2018 midterm cycle was by holding raucous campaign rallies in those areas. But the coronavirus pandemic has forced the president and his campaign team to re-think those events after a subpar turnout recently in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The Atlanta trip will start to form an answer to whether a daytime official visit about a complicated matter like nixing infrastructure project regulations can provide the same boost as one of his wild rallies.

"The electoral landscape is looking more perilous for the president with each passing week. We saw his rallies give GOP House candidates a boost in the 2018 midterms. Now he needs to do that for himself," said Patrick Murphy, polling director at Monmouth University. "I expect we will see him in a lot of states he won handily four years ago. But it's not clear how impactful non-rally trips can be."