WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Joe Biden says he will win North Carolina and a handful of other southern states if he is the Democratic nominee in 2020.

  • Experts say that while Democrats like Biden have a shot in the south, a lot of things need to go right
  • In a statement, the Trump campaign dismissed Biden's comments about winning in the south
  • Biden has recently made headlines for comments about working with segregationists during his days in the U.S. Senate

Biden made the remark earlier this week at a forum hosted by the Poor People’s Campaign.

“I plan, if I’m your nominee, on winning Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, believe it or not. And I believe we can win Texas and Florida,” the former vice president said.

But does he stand a chance in that part of the country, including in North Carolina? Experts say that while Democrats like Biden have a shot in the south, a lot of things need to go right for them in order to win there.

In North Carolina, Barack Obama squeaked out a victory in 2008, the first Democratic presidential candidate to take the state in decades. Since then, the state swung back to the red column. In 2012, Mitt Romney won with a two-point margin. In 2016, the state went for then-candidate Donald Trump by 3.5 points.

“The exact dynamics of 2008 are very unlikely to replicate entirely in 2020, so a new kind of Democratic base would have to emerge in North Carolina in order for a presidential candidate to carry it,” said Leah Askarinam, who analyzes races across the country for Inside Elections.

Inside Elections currently rates North Carolina as a "toss-up" in the 2020 presidential race.

Askarinam said the 2018 midterm elections, and candidates like Beto O’Rourke in Texas, demonstrated that Democrats can put up a fight in statewide races in certain southern states. However, she notes, it is unclear whether Biden would have the same sort of star power as O'Rourke or Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia - or if that even matters in what is expected to be a high-turnout election.

“If Democrats couldn’t do it in 2018 with high turnout, maybe they could do it in 2020 with even higher turnout which is what we’re all expecting to see,” she said.

Biden has recently made headlines for comments about working with segregationists during his days in the U.S. Senate. Could that sink Biden's chances including in the south, where African American voters are key for the Democrats?

Askarinam noted that Democratic voters know Biden and like him, in part, because they think he can beat Trump.

"As long as he has that kind of universal name-ID and his connections with Barack Obama, you can expect he'll have a substantial base in the Democratic Party, and that of course includes black voters," she said.

There is also the question of how much Democrats should be concentrating on the south, especially after they lost long-time midwest strongholds like Michigan and Wisconsin - the so-called "blue wall" - in 2016.

“That’s a big debate right now - whether Democrats want to focus on a growing coalition demographically, which tends to be cities in the south, tends to be nonwhite voters, tends to be younger voters,” Askarinam said. “But if you look at the number of Democrats, they tend to be higher in those 'blue wall' states.”

Part of that overall Democratic strategy may not become clear until they have settled on a nominee - which is still likely months away.

In a statement, the Trump campaign dismissed Biden's comments about winning in the south.

“Joe Biden may well be sitting at home in his own living room during the general election next year, because it’s far from certain he’ll be the Democrat nominee,” Daniel Bucheli, deputy press secretary for the Trump campaign, said in a statement.

“When voters have an opportunity to compare the President Trump’s achievements with radical Democrats policies, they will see the choice is clear. President Trump will win again on his record of success,” Bucheli continued.