NATIONAL HARBOR, MD — Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, moderated a conversation with Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump at CPAC on Friday.
They came on stage to a standing ovation.
Parscale gave the audience a lot of great data comparing the Trump campaign of 2016 to the Trump campaign of 2020, and how well-positioned the campaign is for the upcoming election. “The campaign is operating better, more smoothly, and operating better for this party and the future than any campaign in history,” he said.
“We’re building something revolutionary in our ground game and in digital,” Parscale explained. In fact, the 2020 campaign has essentially been in motion since the day after Trump won in 2016. The Trump campaign is really looking at their ground game in key states because Parscale warned the Democrats “are going to cheat.” With that expectation, the Trump campaign is working aggressively to have a massive volunteer network and ground game to get out the vote.
Soon, their Army for Trump initiative will be launching, and they’re off to a great start. In 2016, they had 600,000 volunteers. In 2020, they have two million. In 2016, they had a strong presence in six battleground states, but this year, it’s 17 states. One state the campaign is putting a lot of effort into is Minnesota, which Trump only barely lost in 2016.
Parscale revealed another interesting stat: while Barack Obama had a direct contact list of 18 million people, Trump’s direct contact list is 50 million people.
"The campaign is operating better, more smoothly, and operating better for this party and the future than any campaign in history" @parscale on the difference between the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaign. #CPAC2020 #LeadRight pic.twitter.com/fwqQpNokpd
— CPAC 2020 (Text CPAC to 56479) (@CPAC) February 28, 2020
Lara Trump also had some great information about her father-in-law’s campaign. She started by talking to the women in the audience, then revealed that in 2016, 25 percent of donations to the Trump campaign came from women. In 2020, it’s 50 percent. Also, 60 percent of the people working on the campaign are women.
Lara Trump and Brad Parscale also trashed the media during the discussion. “The president has all the confidence and control moving towards 2020…because all the media does is sell chaos,” said Parscale.
“Donald Trump didn’t need this job,” Lara explained. “That’s why they fight him every single day.”
“There’s no due diligence left in journalism,” she added.
"The president has all the confidence and control moving towards 2020…because all the media does is sell chaos." @parscale on the success of President @realDonaldTrump's reelection campaign. #CPAC2020 #LeadRight pic.twitter.com/vTvPyDfCff
— CPAC 2020 (Text CPAC to 56479) (@CPAC) February 28, 2020
Of course, the main message of the discussion was that no matter what the campaign does, it needs the efforts of volunteers and activists to make the victory happen.
“In 2016, the president said, ‘what do you have to lose by voting for me?’ Now [if he doesn’t win] we have everything to lose,” Lara said.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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