(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Shedding more light on MAGA GOTV [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-27 I admit it is harder for me to write up diaries when i wasn’t in the field the prior weekend. Even though 5,305 Hope Springs from Field PAC [website] volunteers knocked on doors in 11 states (Arizona being in the midst of extreme heat warnings), there is something about that interaction with voters that makes these easier. You may remember that my wife and i were in Richmond for the Virginia Democratic Convention, and that’s a whole different experience than knocking on doors. But i will continue to urge people to volunteer with their local Democratic party orgs even though they might not be as welcoming as you would hope (hey, sometimes they are! sometimes they aren’t). I make my 10/10/10 calls tonight, so even those don’t help me out much. But, then, i open up my browser and there are numerous tabs with subjects to consider. Right now, i have 16 tabs saved for that purpose. And within there are some insights to be gained about one subject people keep asking me about: the MAGA ground game. What evidence are you seeing on the ground? What do you know (or expect)? What should we be on the look out for? At the convention, in several meetings, through text and emails, these are questions people keep asking me. Let’s start with a look back. In 2020, Trump and the RNC tried to wage a pretty traditional ground game. The Trump campaign knew that it won on a fluke in 2016 and realized that it wasn’t likely to repeat that result in 2020 unless it changed things up. And this was before Covid. Like many presidential re-election campaigns, the Trump campaign did a deep-dive into the re-elect campaigns of the past and sought to incorporate the practices it believed worked best from those that it had admired. It ”hired” Karl Rove, the architect of Bush (43)’s re-election campaign. It created a “Trump Victory Leadership Initiative,” which it claimed was modelled after “the fellowship program Barack Obama’s campaign pioneered in 2008 and 2012” but was really an outgrowth of the Leadership Institute and Morton Blackwell’s Youth campaign efforts for the Reagan Campaigns. And it borrowed heavily from the Obama campaigns: As they build their program, Parscale and others on the campaign and at the RNC have been studying the book “Groundbreakers: How Obama’s 2.2 Million Volunteers Transformed Campaigning in America,” a senior campaign official told TIME. It’s not the first time Republicans have turned to Obama’s historic campaign for tactical guidance. In 2016, for example, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz gave copies of Obama’s former campaign manager David Plouffe’s book to his senior presidential campaign team, telling them to “nakedly and shamelessly emulate this.” “Volunteering is how you win,” Brad Pascale reported to have said to introduce this effort. “Don’t expect just money on TV and [a] digital program is going to win this again.” As a result, “Trump’s campaign knocks on a million doors a week. Biden’s knocks on zero.” But that was 2020. Between the insurrection and Trump’s clinching of the nomination, the RNC had been building towards 1,000 Community Centers for minority outreach, building up its data program and touting a “vastly improved” ground game in preparation of 2024. And then Trump formally took over the RNC. He fired Ronna McDonald, had the RNC hire his daughter-in-law (to keep an eye on things) and followed up: The senior leadership has been almost entirely replaced or reassigned, while dozens of lower-ranking officials including state directors were either fired or told to reapply for their jobs. A nationwide network of community outreach centers, once a fixture of the party’s efforts to attract minority voters, will be shuttered or refocused on get-out-the-vote efforts. The much heralded “Bank Your Vote” program, aimed at getting Republicans to vote early, will shift to a “Grow The Vote” program focused more on expanding the party’s outreach to less likely Trump voters. Trump’s team, led by campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, is bringing in allies with what LaCivita says will be a leaner, more aggressive operation with more political experience. In other moves, The RNC will recalibrate its data operation, Whatley said, “eliminating waste” and catering to individual states. Voter contact programs will shift to maximize Trump’s ability to energize supporters, he said. Whatley also announced an increased focus on election integrity efforts, a nod to Trump’s fixation on fraud in the 2020 election and the numerous unsuccessful lawsuits he pursued in the wake of his defeat. Sense the chaos? Donors did. And Trump was trying to save money, but he was also trying to attract money, as well. And that didn’t go to well: “Donald Trump's new team at the Republican National Committee is reversing its plans to cut the party's community centers for minority voters — and a program to encourage early voting — after a backlash from RNC members.” What does this have to do with field (knocking on doors, etc)? Well, Trump blow a hole in the careful plans the RNC had been building over the past 3 years. In fact, Trump made a 180 degree turn there. “Trump’s campaign emerged from the GOP primary in March with relatively little money, but a belief that its data operation could effectively handle ground game operations with a small staff. After Trump’s team took over the RNC in March, it laid off dozens of staffers.” Hope Springs from Field PAC began knocking on doors again on March 2nd. We target Democrats and unaffiliated voters with a systematic approach that reminds them not only that Democrats care, but Democrats are determined to deliver the best government possible to all Americans. Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing, voter registration (and follow-up) and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization2024 Hope Springs from Field understands that volunteer to voter personal interactions are critical. Knocking on doors has repeatedly been found to be the most successful tactic to get voters to cast a ballot and that is the goal of what we do. Donald Trump’s campaign is taking a vastly different approach to 2024 compared with 2020, with plans for fewer staff and expenses, including what the campaign views as superfluous brick-and-mortar offices. Instead, the campaign pledges to run a more efficient operation that will lean heavily on data modeling, microtargeting and relying on wealthy conservative groups for data, infrastructure and significant bank accounts to help find Trump a pathway to the 270 electoral votes needed to secure victory in November. “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 plan purportedly relies on “3,000, at least” paid canvassers, “financed with unlimited corporate dollars and untraceable dark money from political nonprofits that are otherwise off-limits to a federal campaign.” Here’s the thing: MAGA and conservative orgs have been competing to get the funding, indeed, we are seeing this competitive on the ground. Hope Springs volunteers have come across evidence of canvassers sponsored by Club for Growth, the various Kock-related efforts, Concerned Women for America, Turning Point Action and Heritage Action. Close encounters have been less frequent in 2024 than i remember for 2022, but i could be wrong. Of those groups, perhaps one of the most important is Turning Point Action, which is hosting Trump in Michigan on Saturday. It will be his second engagement with the organization in as many weeks. Turning Point was one of several groups that sat down with campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and James Blair during a donor retreat earlier in the year that focused on how outside groups could best assist Trump’s reelection effort. TPA — an affiliate of Turning Point USA, the youth organization started by Trump ally Charlie Kirk — is aiming to ultimately spend $108 million on a get-out-the-vote effort in key battleground states, according to two sources familiar with the plans. The “Chase the Vote” program has built out infrastructures in Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan, all states that Trump won in 2016 but lost to President Joe Biden in 2020. While Trump speaks to the crowd this weekend, the group is planning to sign up more local volunteers as well as pass out job applications to beef up their program, particularly in the Wolverine State. Democratic operatives have mocked Trump’s campaign for their limited hired staff on the ground, as Biden’s team has continued to build out its own massive ground game operation. and then there was this article: Republicans have quietly formed a new super PAC that is preparing what appears to be a significant push to persuade former President Donald J. Trump’s voters to vote early or by absentee ballot. The group, America PAC, was created last month and remains fairly secretive. But over the last two weeks, it has spent $6.6 million on behalf of Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, according to public filings, vaulting it suddenly into the top tier of pro-Trump outside groups in the general election. On its little-publicized website, the group is collecting voters’ information and encouraging them to register to vote, to request an absentee or mail ballot, or to pledge to vote, calling the race “the most consequential election of our lifetime.” [...] The group has so far made payments to two conservative vendors: About $6 million for “canvassing/field operations” to In Field Strategies, a large Republican grass-roots operation that has been paid by the Republican National Committee. But Hope Springs volunteers haven’t seen any America PAC canvassers on the streets. Doesn’t mean we won’t, but we haven’t. What we do know is that these MAGA orgs have been great at attracting press. But there is no question in my mind that Republicans aren’t as well organized — and conservative orgs not as prolific — as they were in 2022. Compared to Republicans, Democrats have more third-party groups with far more organizational experience ID’ing voters, walking neighborhoods, knocking on doors, handing out campaign materials to voters, and urging them in face-to-face meetings to cast ballots early in person, by mail, or on Election Day. And outside liberal groups are also well-funded, with one coalition pledging $1 billion to back Biden. The conflicting canvassing approaches of Trump and Biden tells the story of their campaigns organizations. Biden’s operation is huge, completely in-house, and traditional in its approach. It’s so sure of its program that it’s not yet taking advantage of the FEC opinion in the same way Trump’s campaign has. And, compared to Republicans, Democrats have had more electoral success. AFAIK, Hope Springs from Field is the only Democratic or Progressive group on the ground week in and week out, year in and year out, as weather allows. In fact, that was one of the biggest reasons why Obama alums came together to create what we envisioned to be a pop-up PAC for the Georgia Senate runoffs. There are a number of MAGA or conservative orgs who have done (and are doing) the same thing. But running into another group of canvassers is pretty rare. We have different target or walk lists. When we find evidence that we are knocking on the same doors, we always note that because that is the very definitely of a swing voter. Some of the evidence that volunteers bring back to organizers is not actually Saturday evidence but from the weekdays. It is one of the differences between MAGA canvassers and our Hope Springs volunteers: the MAGA canvassers we have encountered have all been paid canvassers. Now there are Democratic orgs that pay canvassers (Fair Fight, for example). That’s just not what we do (at this time). Hope Springs has targeted states that have competitive Senate races and/or the Electoral College in 2024, as well as districts that are remapped in ways that offer opportunities or vulnerabilities for Democrats next year (specifically those where a Republican won a Congressional District that voted for Biden in 2022). There is a lot of work to be done! By starting early, and aiming towards super-compliance with these really, really onerous provisions, Hope Springs from Field seeks to undermine Republican efforts to throw Democrats off the voter rolls, informing voters about the new laws and regulations aimed at them. 2023 Hope Springs expenses We are also — this being an election year — adding the Post Cards to New Voters component back into our Voter Outreach, both New Voters we find at their doors as well as New Voters we target in the Voter File. 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