Donald Trump’s campaign is taking a far different strategy to 2024 than it did in 2020, with plans for less workers and expenses, including what they consider to be redundant real and mortar offices. Instead, the campaign promises to run a more efficient operation based heavily on data modeling, microtargeting, and relying on wealthy conservative groups for data, infrastructure, and significant bank accounts to help Trump secure the 270 electoral votes required to win in November.
“[The] ability to work with outside groups on field work alleviates the need to have the same size staff footprint as in previous cycles, allowing us to retain a greater share of resources for advertising and paid voter contact programs than in past cycles,” according to a senior Trump.
Perhaps one of the most prominent of these organizations is Turning Point Action, which will host Trump in Michigan on Saturday, his second appearance with the group in as many weeks. Turning Point was one of several groups that met with campaign strategists Chris LaCivita and James Blair earlier this year at a donor retreat to discuss how outside groups could best support Trump’s reelection campaign.
TPA, an affiliate of Turning Point USA, the youth organization founded by Trump associate Charlie Kirk, will to spend $108 million on a get-out-the-vote drive in crucial battleground states, according to two persons familiar with the plans. The “Chase the Vote” campaign has established infrastructures in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan, all of which Trump won in 2016 but lost to President Joe Biden in 2020. While Trump talks to the gathering this weekend, the group intends to recruit additional local volunteers and distribute job applications to strengthen their program, particularly in Michigan.
Democratic insiders have derided Trump’s campaign’s small recruited people on the ground, while Biden’s team has continued to expand its own enormous ground game organization.
“You need boots on the ground to win an election,” said one veteran Democratic strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to remain candid. “[The Biden campaign] is far outpacing Trump’s operation on this front.”
But Trump’s staff argues that they have personnel on the ground; they just aren’t all paid by the campaign.
The TPA program is based on “relational organizing,” a type of community organizing that entails hiring “ballot chasers,” full-time employees who are taught to develop relationships with specific people of the community and ensure they vote in the upcoming election.
Kirk and Tyler Bowyer, TPA’s chief operational officer, founded the initiative following Republicans’ significant defeats in the 2022 election.
Using data from the last several election cycles, TPA identified thousands of right-leaning low propensity voters, including those who had voted for a Republican in recent cycles but did not cast a ballot in 2020 or 2022 and cannot be counted on to vote in November. Many of these voters reside in Republican districts.
“Previously, the prevailing wisdom among the consultant class was ‘let’s go to those swing districts and really try to move those voters.'” “We don’t agree,” one individual acquainted with the plans told CNN. “We are going where the Republicans are. We’re going to raise the score in those places and attract the people who stayed at home in 2020 or 2022.”
Ballot chasers are hired locally and given a list of 400 to 600 voters to get to the polls this cycle in any way they can, within the limits of the state’s laws, such as driving them to vote, assisting with mail-in ballots, and encouraging early voting.
“We want them to be mayor of their territory,” TPA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet stated. “They’re throwing BBQs in the park, they’re getting to know their neighbors, they’re hosting local events so that when voting month comes along, they already have a relationship with these individuals so they can get as many pieces of paper in the ballot box as they can.”
The 2020 election was determined by a small number of voters in three states. “TPA intends to engage with hundreds of thousands of voters in these states,” Kolvet stated.
The approach of relying on outside groups is untested. Advisers claimed this would be unlike any other traditional campaign tactic in modern history, made possible by a recent Federal Election Commission decision that allows campaigns to actively collaborate and coordinate with outside groups. It also stems from a critical issue that the Trump team has yet to address: money.
Trump’s campaign has struggled for months to keep up with Biden’s increasing war fund and the former president’s mounting legal bills.
Republican operatives characterized the initiative as courageous but hazardous.
“You’re putting a lot of trust in these [outside groups], who may be difficult to manage,” said one operator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide an honest evaluation.
A former RNC staffer, who asked anonymity to speak openly, stated, “There is no presence being built up; they do not have a footprint.” They have a small staff in the United States.”
“This isn’t a messaging war,” the former official explained. “This will be a turnout fight…” “It appears that they are miscalculating how this election will be won when you don’t have people out there creating relationships and intense infrastructure, with fewer offices and bodies.
