Eric Trump bullish on internal 2024 polls but fretting Dem ‘October Surprise’

The former president’s middle son is telling Florida Republicans that the electoral map has expanded and that certain key demographics are going Donald Trump’s way.

But he also warns that late-campaign developments – in the form of an “October Surprise” – could complicate things down the stretch.

“The map has expanded in a massive, massive way,” Eric Trump said in Milwaukee Tuesday.

“The internal numbers are great. You’re seeing massive, massive shifts,” he added, noting that it’s not just states that are in play, but demographics nationally. 

“We’ve never done better with the youth vote than we are doing right now. We’ve never done better with the African American vote than we’re doing right now. That vote has moved by 20%. We’ve never done better with the Hispanic vote than we are doing right now. We’ve never done better with the Jewish vote than we’re doing right now,” Eric Trump said, before moving to states that the Trump campaign thinks it can win.

Among them are Minnesota, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Nevada

“In Nevada, we’re up by like 10%. We’re up by like 7% in Arizona. I would have never thought there was a time where your polls actually showed you higher in Nevada than they did in Arizona. I mean, Arizona is just incredibly red, but that’s actually how well we’re doing in Arizona. That’s how well we’re doing in Nevada.”

RNC and Trump political director James Blair and pollster Tony Fabrizio offered similarly upbeat takes, saying that Minnesota, Virginia, New Jersey and New Mexico were all in play also, along with Maine. 

Blair confirmed that the “map is expanding,” meanwhile, and that the Trump side is optimistic that they can “outspend” the Biden campaign. They’re also confident that news events, including Saturday night’s assassination attempt on the former President, have “really galvanized our supporters and brought new supporters aboard.”

“Joe Biden has spent $150 million in the battleground states,” Blair said. “And the numbers are going in the wrong direction.”

Fabrizio noted that the media was late to understanding that Minnesota and Virginia were in play, chiding press for “playing catch-up” and not understanding “the level of enthusiasm our base has versus the level that Joe Biden’s base has.”

“You’re writing as if North Carolina and Arizona are still toss-up states,” he said, saying that opportunities for GOP pick-ups exist in this electoral cycle that didn’t in 2016 or 2020.

One thing to watch, he said, would be which marginal candidates made the ballots in which states.

Still, Fabrizio said that many 2020 Biden voters have “buyers’ remorse,” and are simply too “disaffected” to vote Biden again. Ad buys focusing on abortion and Jan. 6, he added, have taken polling numbers in the “wrong direction” for the Biden campaign – despite a staggering $150 million in the bank to spend on messaging.

“Right now on average, put my polls aside (and look at) public averages. We’re ahead by almost five points in Pennsylvania. We’re ahead by a little over six points in Arizona and coming up on seven points in Nevada. And by the way, that’s not counting in the undecideds that will break to us. So, you know, right now we have a pretty comfortable margin in those states,” Fabrizio said.

Fabrizio is also bullish on Trump’s appeal to younger voters buckling under the pressure of the economy, since roughly 35% of them in target states have had to take “second jobs to make ends meet.”

“Their memory is that the economy was doing much better and there was more opportunity,” Fabrizio added, referring to Trump’s presidency.

Despite the positive polling, there was an acknowledgement that currently unforeseeable events could change the topography of the race.

Eric Trump offered cautions, saying that it’s a certainty the Biden campaign will “cheat” and that a familiar late-campaign trope is bound to recur weeks before the election.

“Guys, there’s gonna be an October surprise,” Eric Trump asserted. 

“I want to get the world prepared for the fact that the same game that they’ve played every single time, you know, the Democratic October Surprise, which is something that they spring on you, which is so sensational that it buries you, but it’s something that you don’t have enough time to disprove. So by the time it kind of gets through the media, it’s already done the damage that they intend to do, even if it’s not true.”

Fabrizio echoed Eric’s sentiments, warning supporters that Dems “will do anything” to win.