Inside Trump’s 'untested' swing state ground game that’s prompting alarm among local GOP officials

03 August 2024

A March Federal Election Commission (FEC) guidance appears to have prompted a massive shift in Donald Trump’s electoral ground game in battleground states, according to a new report from the Washington Post.

Whereas “in the past, campaigns and official party committees generally observed a firewall that blocked information-sharing with super PACs and nonprofits that accept unlimited contributions,” the March FEC guidance, the Post reports, “opened the door for campaigns and outside groups to collaborate on turnout efforts.”

The FEC advisory “relaxed limitations on how they can collaborate on paid door-knocking efforts,” Politico reported at the time.

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According to the Post, since the guidance, “campaigns and outside groups are free to share messaging and exchange data,” a “new opportunity [that] has allowed the Trump campaign to supplement a bare-bones in-house field program with allied programs fueled by megadonors."

As such, Trump’s team is now “relying on a cluster of loosely coordinated outside groups to run turnout operations traditionally performed by the campaign itself” — an “untested move” that’s prompting alarm among local GOP officials.

Per the Post:

With fewer than 100 days left before the election, local GOP officials in battleground states have raised alarms about the scant presence of Trump campaign field staff. For the large armies of paid and volunteer door-knockers and canvassers that typically drive turnout in presidential elections, the campaign is largely relying on outside groups[.]

Those groups include America First Works, America PAC, Turning Point Action and The Faith and Freedom Coalition.

According to the report, the “shrunken in-house operation resulted from [Trump’s] takeover of the Republican National Committee in March.” Up until that point, “the RNC had been planning an extensive field program, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.”

“They were totally discarded,” a person familiar with the plans told the Post.

The “discarded” documents, the Post reports “show a Trump operation that was once prepared to spend extensively across the country, targeting particular communities and attempting to reach more than 1 million voters.” The Pennsylvania plan even faulted Trump’s 2020 campaign for failing to “turn out enough of low propensity voters to compete with the Democrats in early voting or persuade enough voters to hit the number of votes we needed to win.”

Despite the novel ground game’s “untested” ability, Trump’s team appears to “be placing a premium on the new FEC decision,” Politico reported in April after the former president organized a private meeting with leaders of pro-Trump third-party groups.

According to Politico, James Blair, the Trump campaign’s political director, “alluded to the [FEC] advisory opinion, which he described as a game-changer,” during “a secretive gathering of conservative donors.”

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