Trump goes for unconventional ground game while Harris builds up swing state army

Former President Donald Trump‘s and Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign strategies in seven battleground states have vastly differed as Democrats have increased get-out-the-vote resources, while the GOP outsources those initiatives and instead relies on poll-watching initiatives. 

With just a little over 80 days left until Election Day, the Trump campaign is ceding door-knocking and canvassing opportunities to outside groups such as Turning Point Action, helmed by Charlie Kirk, and other super PACs they cannot direct. 

Such tactics to allow noncampaign staff to direct voter outreach come with risks that in the past have sometimes proven unsuccessful. And it allows the Harris campaign, already bolstered by President Joe Biden stepping aside, to widen the gap in voter outreach in the seven battlegrounds that will determine the next president of the United States — to the ire of conservatives. 

“Forget the money and ads, the Democrats’ ground game is far surpassing the GOP ground game,” bemoaned conservative commentator Erick Erickson on X. “They’ve been registering new voters and farming for absentee ballots with paid operatives, some of whom are making up to $40 an hour. The GOP has nothing at that level.” 

But these outside groups insist that the work they are doing is effective while allowing the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee to save millions in costly programs.

“Turning Point Action has hired hundreds of full-time ballot chasers in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan which will be working alongside an army of thousands of volunteers who have joined our Gen Z, Hispanic, Women, Farmers, and Faith Coalitions,” Kirk said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. 

“We’ve also launched our Commit 100 program recruiting volunteers to move to Arizona and Wisconsin to chase 100 early ballots and 100 Election Day ballots,” Kirk continued. “If they come, we’ll provide accommodations. We’ll continue to examine territories in the key battleground states where it makes sense for us to staff up and expand. We are grateful to be able to harmonize with the campaign and the RNC on canvassing and GOTV efforts like Chase the Vote.” 

Past attempts to allow affiliated groups to take on these burdens have not always worked out. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), one of Trump’s strongest primary rivals, allowed the super PAC supporting his campaign, Never Back Down, to take over voter operations in Iowa the first nominating GOP state. But the super PAC ultimately wasted tens of millions of dollars that saw DeSantis lose the Iowa caucuses by at least 30 percentage points. 

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, claimed in July he would give $45 million a month to America PAC in support of Trump. But its ground game efforts to turn out voters are reportedly in disarray and election officials in Michigan and North Carolina are investigating the super PAC. 

Biden, and then Harris, benefited from the advantage of incumbency and virtually no primary season to
get a head start on ground operations. Trump didn’t clear the GOP primary field until March and at the time shook up the RNC with new leadership where they immediately prioritized getting 100,000 people to help with poll watching to protect the votes after they are cast.

While the Trump campaign claims they now have a similar number, if not more field offices, than Democrats, they appear to lag behind on the number of staffers based on numbers provided by the campaigns. A Washington Examiner survey of action in battleground states shows a mismatch, such as the Harris campaign having more than 1,400 staffers compared to the Trump campaign, which claims to have hundreds of staffers but has not yet released the total amount yet.

More than 200,000 volunteers joined the Harris campaign since Biden suspended his campaign while the Trump campaign touts 14,500 volunteers.

The GOP has largely turned to election integrity programs that aim to increase the number of poll watchers in November after Trump questioned the validity of the 2020 election. The Trump campaign’s political director, James Blair, told Axios they have a field of more than 150,000 poll watchers and on X he claimed they have 14,500 trained volunteers or “Trump Force 47 Captains” in battleground states. “More than 2,500 trained in the last week + increase training capacity daily,” Blair wrote. 

Earlier in August, Blair claimed the campaign had hundreds of paid staff and 300 offices across the battleground states, which the campaign’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt also echoed in a statement to the Washington Examiner. 

“We have hundreds of paid staffers across the battleground states, and actively hiring more, along with over 300 Trump/GOP offices operating,” said Leavitt. “Our operation is focused on increasing capacity every day and turning out the voters President Trump needs to win, while the Harris campaign is busy fighting internally about which team is really in charge between the Biden people, the Harris people, and the Obama people.”

Trump and the RNC have largely trailed Biden, then Harris, and the Democratic National Committee in fundraising due to a wide primary roster of Republicans who failed to wrestle the nomination from the former president. In July, Harris’s record-breaking 0 million more than doubled the roughly $139 million raised by the GOP. 

Those advantages have allowed Democrats to further increase resoursces in the battleground states. In less than two weeks since Biden dropped out on July 21, the Harris campaign had volunteers make 2.3 million phone calls, knock on 172,000 doors, and send nearly 2.9 million text messages to voters in battleground states.

“We currently have more than 260 coordinated campaign offices and more than 1,400 coordinated staff across the battleground states that are making investments in training and reaching supporters across the country with new organizing tactics,” bragged Dan Kanninen, battleground states director for Harris’s campaign, in an early August memo. 

Four days later Kanninen touted the deep investments being made in the blue wall battlegrounds, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, that Democrats must win to ensure victory. 

“In Wisconsin, we have the most formidable door knocking operation the state has ever seen, with 48 coordinated offices across 43 counties, including 32 in counties that Trump won in 2020 — 13 of which he won by more than 20 points,” he wrote. 

In Michigan, Democrats  “have almost 200 coordinated staff on the ground and 50 field offices in every corner of the state, including three in Detroit, and many more in communities like Grand Rapids, Flint, Marquette, Lansing, Saginaw, and Traverse City,” Kanninen continued. 

The Harris campaign has almost 300 staffers across 36 offices in Pennsylvania, while the Trump campaign opened its first office in the state in Philadelphia two months ago. 

Democrats are hoping to flip North Carolina blue for the first time in 16 years. Before Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee the campaign had opened 10 field offices in the Tar Heel State in March. Kanninen said the Harris operation would double its staff in North Carolina, as well as in Arizona, and claimed that 40,000 people signed up to support the campaign in the days following Biden’s decision to end his 2024 campaign. 

The party is learning from past Democratic mistakes, Douglas Wilson, a Democratic strategist, told the Washington Examiner. 

“They are going to areas that Democrats don’t go to a lot of times. They’re going to the eastern part of the state, which is very rural and has a significant, large African American population,” Wilson said. “They are hitting the cities along the I-85 corridor, which is Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, and Durham. They are talking to different constituencies, holding meetings, knocking on doors, making phone calls. There’s a lot of activity going on in the Harris campaign, which in my opinion gives her the advantage here.” 

But Wilson also cautioned that there is much work to be done to match GOP turnout among white rural voters. “And it will be close but the Vice President’s infrastructure gives her a little bit of a leg up over the Trump campaign,” he said. 

In Georgia, another Sunbelt state, the Harris campaign saw more than 63,000 sign-ups and has 24 offices while the Trump campaign opened up offices in Savannah, the metro Atlanta area, and Athens. 

Out west in Nevada, the Harris campaign has 13 offices while claiming Trump had one office in the state. But Steven Hilding, a Nevada Republican strategist, told the Washington Examiner that the Trump campaign had a northern and a southern office in the state.  

“I wouldn’t say that the Trump campaign is just kind of washing their hands of a field program by any means because I think you’re seeing Trump Force 47 being a very successful field program, as it seems so far,” Hilding added. 

The Republican strategist suggested the Trump campaign was targeting the smaller groups of voters that can be persuaded to vote for Trump. “I think that’s what you’re seeing a lot of the Trump campaign’s efforts are going into, the paid media, things like that, targeting those kind of voters.”

“And then the field effort,” he continued. “You know, if you look right now at the Trump Force 47 website, there are 39 events in the state of Nevada between now and the end of the month.” 

Republicans have repeatedly stressed that the enthusiasm over the Harris campaign will recede the closer Election Day gets and as voters learn more about the vice president’s policy issues. “I think you’re going to see Trump start to increase his rally schedule that’s going to pick up some of some of that enthusiasm on the ground, which then correlates to enthusiasm among the volunteer base, and among the actual field. The knocking of doors and making phone calls,” said Hilding.