Earlier this year, the Biden campaign was rather smug about its fundraising advantage over Trump. They pointed it out often, typically leaving out the rather important context that Biden was jointly fundraising with the DNC. Trump couldn't do the same with the RNC until he officially won enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination. Since then, Trump has crushed Biden in fundraising and erased his advantage. But, Trump has now neutralized another Biden advantage, and Democrats ought to be terrified.
Trump has the lead in the polls, both nationally and in battleground states. However, in the crucial states that will determine the election—Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan—Trump's lead is within the margin of error. This is concerning for Trump because Democrats typically excel with voter turnout. They're like a well-oiled machine, banking early votes, targeting low-propensity voters and sometimes even dead voters, and ensuring they get to the polls.
Trump's ground game, however, has largely been dismissed as inadequate. But, it appears that the Trump campaign "may have a ground game after all," writes The Bulwark's Marc Caputo, who isn't particularly thrilled about this development. He adds that "if all goes as planned, Trump will have a George Soros–backed political committee and the Democrats’ top election-law firm to thank."
"For months, Trump was criticized over his small staff and the Republican National Committee’s layoffs and shuttered field offices," Caputo notes. "But since May, his campaign has quietly been in talks with more than three dozen conservative groups to outsource parts of its voter turnout operation. This would be a first-of-its-kind effort."
This type of arrangement between federal campaigns and outside groups used to be forbidden, but the rules changed under a March 20 Federal Election Commission advisory opinion, sought by the Democratic group Texas Majority PAC and the Elias Law Group. That opinion may turn out to fundamentally change the way federal political campaigns mobilize voters for years to come.
Caputo writes that the decision was effectively a lifeline for the Trump campaign, which, at the time, was short on cash while Biden's campaign had been building up a massive campaign operation. Biden's campaign currently boasts 150 field offices, 400 staffers, and a huge volunteer army in the battleground states.
James Blair, the Trump campaign’s political director in charge of field operations, told The Bulwark that the Trump campaign is going to beat Biden at his own game.
Related: It’s Obvious This Is Biden’s New Hail Mary Strategy to Save His Faltering Campaign
“Everyone’s chasing the Biden shiny object of, ‘We’re opening offices and hiring staff.’ But they’re missing the big picture,” he said. “We’re going to beat them at their own game. They thought they were helping themselves, but they’re actually helping us.”
Will that be enough? Caputo, after raising the alarm that Trump appears to finally have a ground game, tries to balance his concern by pointing out that some Democrats are skeptical about how effective the Trump campaign's strategy will be. But, as Blair explained, Trump's voter turnout operation isn't entirely outsourced.
Blair said the Trump campaign still has its own in-house canvassing program that will work hand-in-glove with groups such as America First Works and Turning Point Action, which hosted Trump last weekend in Detroit. Blair compared the campaign’s role to “air traffic control” in which “we can provide feedback on messaging guidance all the way down the chain.”
Caputo makes no mention of the huge influx of cash that Trump has received since he started jointly fundraising with the RNC, and since the New York City verdict, which has since erased Biden's cash advantage. I'm not sure why Caputo left that out, because it's a game-changing development that means Trump will have the resources to compete and build up an effective campaign operation.
But hey, let them underestimate Trump.
