Originally Posted: September 10, 2019
Democrats say they are mounting a major push across battleground states to court suburban voters — a key voting demographic that was once the bedrock of the GOP but has been shifting away from the party in the era of President Donald Trump.
The effort, which will target areas that will likely define the 2020 presidential contest, kicks off on Thursday with a roundtable event, hosted by Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez, alongside local Texas residents in the suburbs of Harris County.
The site of this first event sits in the 7th Congressional District currently held by freshman Rep. Lizzie Pannill Fletcher — whose seat was a key pickup in a crucial geographic area seen by Democrats as the epicenter of their successes in 2018 and now representative of their targets in 2020.
The event coincides with the third Democratic debate, hosted by ABC News and Univision, in Houston, Texas on Thursday night at 8 p.m.
During Thursday’s event, Perez is expected to underscore Trump’s “weaknesses” with this core voting bloc and the foundational issues of the 2020 race, including gun safety, immigration, health care and the economy. A new ABC News/Washington Post poll found that among the issues central to the gun reform debate, background checks and red flag laws are two policies that boast overwhelming support across the country.
“Suburban voters sharply rejected Republicans in 2018 and they’re ready to hold Trump accountable in 2020,” said David Bergstein, DNC Director of Battleground State Communications. “They’re fed up with his toxic health care agenda, failure to support commonsense gun safety measures and endless string of broken promises on a number of issues.” READ MORE