'No ground activity at all': Republicans worry about Trump’s lackluster swing state outreach

10 September 2024

With the final two months of the 2024 election at hand, some Republicans are privately fretting that former President Donald Trump's campaign isn't doing nearly enough basic voter engagement necessary to win.

According to a Tuesday report in Semafor, several GOP operatives — including former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel – are bearish about Trump's chances in several must-win battleground states due to his campaign's relative invisibility compared to Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign. Semafor's Shelby Talcott and Burgess Everett reported that McDaniel recently "grumbled to allies that the [Republican] party’s on-the-ground efforts are lacking."

One unnamed "Republican strategist in a swing state" speaking anonymously told the publication that they've seen "no ground activity at all" from the Trump campaign, but instead have only seen "election integrity" efforts. This is in reference to Republicans' strategy of deploying activists to voting precincts and litigating election results in key swing states.

“They’re really only focused on recruiting folks to volunteer to be poll watchers,” the strategist said. “I mean, they do a lot of that s—. But what’s the point of watching the vote if you haven’t turned out the vote?”

Another swing state Republican voter speaking anonymously said they were concerned about the field strategy they were seeing from the Trump campaign. While both campaigns rely on field offices in various major battlegrounds to deploy volunteers to knock doors, drop off campaign literature, conduct phonebanking outreach efforts and distribute lawn signs, this voter said they felt out of the loop when attempting to connect other potential voters to the campaign.

"I’m as plugged in as they get — and yet I don’t even know who my friends and family back home can contact for a yard sign or to knock doors in their precinct," the Republican voter said.

In the 2024 cycle, the Trump campaign's ground game has been somewhat outsourced to far-right activist Charlie Kirk's group, Turning Point USA (TPUSA). The Arizona-based group has identified 300,000+ potential voters apiece in both Arizona and Wisconsin that it feels could help win those states, another 40,000 in Michigan, and roughly 30,000 more in Nevada. The group hoped to raise $108 million to engage with those voters, but it has so far not reached that amount.

A decision earlier this year by the Federal Election Commission allowed for more communication between campaigns' official employees and members of outside groups. One operative said that's helped the former president shore up his ground game in certain key states.

“The FEC ruling allowing party committees to more closely work with outside groups on ground game has been a huge benefit when it comes to targeting low propensity and swing voters,” National Republican Senatorial Committee political director Tim Edson said. “We also expect the Trump campaign to bring out a number of low propensity voters that pollsters often miss, as he has done in the past.”

Click here to read Semafor's report in its entirety.

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