(Bloomberg) -- Democratic front-runner Joe Biden said Monday he plans to campaign during the general election and win in South Carolina, Georgia and Texas, states that have consistently supported Republicans for about four decades.
“We plan on campaigning in the South. I plan on — if I'm your nominee — winning Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina. And I believe we can win Texas and Florida, if you look at the polling data now,” the former vice president said at the Poor People's Campaign forum in Washington. “It's a marathon — it's a long way off.”
Georgia most recently backed a Democrat in 1992, and that was Bill Clinton. The last Democrat who carried Georgia, South Carolina and Texas together was Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Biden's remarks came in response to a question about whether he plans to campaign in the South and the Sun Belt. He mentioned that he visited Alabama in 2017 to support Senator Doug Jones, a Democrat who won a special election in the traditionally red state.
“I have no intention of walking away, if I'm the nominee,” Biden said. “If I'm not the nominee, I have no intention of walking away, in trying to help whoever the nominee is to win those states.”
Biden, asked how he plans to get his agenda past Senate Republicans, said it's not “naive to think we have to work together.” He said he intends to persuade Republicans to support his proposals, and if he cannot he'll ask voters to throw them out of office.
“You try to persuade. Doesn't mean you can do it all the time,” he said. “You can shame people to do things the right way.”
Biden's rival, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, also appeared at the forum. She took a different tack when asked how she would get her agenda past the Senate, saying that if Republicans block her, “then I'm all for getting rid of the filibuster.”
“We have to be willing to get in this fight,” she said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sahil Kapur in Washington at skapur39@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Max Berley at mberley@bloomberg.net
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