Wake up with the Washington Examiner: Trump’s unique approach to swing states and ‘news’ candidates can use

Ground game farm hands

Former President Donald Trump isn’t running a typical presidential campaign. It’s not just that he is a once-beaten former president who fought off a new tide of rising Republicans who tried to replace him. Or that he’s tapping into social media as a way to connect directly with supporters rather than working through traditional media — he did that to great effect in 2016. 

What Trump is doing that is raising eyebrows is following in the footsteps of one of his greatest frenemies, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), by using outside groups and activists to run get-out-the-vote and voter registration efforts in crucial states. That plan didn’t work out for DeSantis, and with roughly 80 days until Election Day and a surging Vice President Kamala Harris erasing the gap Trump held over President Joe Biden, it could scare campaigns off from trying it again. 

A sluggish ground game is one of the biggest criticisms that have been laid against Trump’s political operation, National Political Correspondent Mabinty Quarshie wrote for us this morning. The Trump campaign is severely lagging behind Harris in terms of how many offices they have in pivotal states and how many door-knockers they are employing. But just because the campaign isn’t paying or recruiting people doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone there. 

“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,” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk told Mabinty. 

​​“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.” 

It’s not clear exactly why Trump is leaning on outside groups rather than putting his lieutenants in charge of the volunteers and employees tasked with making sure his biggest, and smallest, supporters turn up on Election Day. Though it may be a shift in focus from preelection support whipping to Election Day poll watching that is driving Trump’s focus. 

However, a change might have to happen soon as the Harris campaign boasts it has cash and volunteers flocking to swing states to help. 

Harris is bolstering an already impressive Democratic GOTV infrastructure Biden had the freedom to set up months in advance. Without a serious primary challenger, the campaign could be confident of its position — a slight miscalculation in terms of who the candidate would be but one that Harris is benefiting from. 

Trump always appeared to be the front-runner for the GOP, but a serious primary campaign sucked up months of opportunity for him to clear the field and establish himself as the de-facto candidate. Walking out of the gates rather than sprinting put Trump in a hole he has mostly climbed out of, though he could still get pushed back into it.

“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 9 million raised by the GOP,” Mabinty wrote.

“Those advantages have allowed Democrats to further increase resources 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,” she wrote.

Click here to read more about Trump’s unconventional approach to election preparation.

News candidates can use

It turns out Democrats and Republicans are both happy to use Google’s tools that let candidates tweak news headlines in ads as a means of giving their campaigns a boost. The altered headlines and descriptions come with a “sponsored by” message that indicates a campaign has paid for the story placement in search results, but that isn’t making news organizations any happier. 

Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry had the details about how Harris and Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) used manipulated headlines and descriptions of legitimate news stories to elevate themselves. After a day of digging, he’s up this morning with a new item showing the practice is a bipartisan one. 

“A review of Google’s Ad Transparency Center shows the campaigns of Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Mike Braun (R-IN), Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), and former Illinois GOP Rep. Rodney Davis used the tactic against political rivals, promoting media stories but crafting their own display headlines and subtexts to either bolster themselves or tarnish their opponents,” Ramsey wrote. 

“The practice is allowed by Google and used across the political spectrum. But critics, including news outlets, say the scheme is deceptive to voters seeking more information about candidates or issues,” he wrote. 

One news outlet is so frustrated with the practice it is considering legal action against Harris’s campaign. 

Harris’s campaign used a story from WDAY Radio, a local news outlet in Fargo, North Dakota, in an ad to make it look like the outlet supported her move of picking Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate. 

Google, and at least one campaign, is defending the practice. 

​​“These ads are explicitly labeled as ‘Sponsored’ so that they’re easily distinguishable from Search results, and they also include ‘paid for by’ disclosures so it’s clear to users who paid for them,” a Google spokesperson told Ramsey. “It’s fairly common for advertisers across the political spectrum to link to external websites, including news sites, in the text of their ad.”

A campaign that was granted anonymity to speak about the practice defended it to Ramsey, arguing that candidates aren’t changing the substance or straying from the facts of the stories they are altering. They also suggested Google was encouraging campaigns who buy Google Search ad space to make the changes, as they hand purchasers a blank slate for the headlines and descriptions. 

Click here to read more about the way campaigns are leaning on Google and news to attract voters.

New from us 

The dangerous Kamala Harris price control farce

Harris looks to shift blame for Biden-era inflation away from government

How swing-state voters see Kamala Harris portrayed on prime-time TV ads

DOJ dropping most Jan. 6 obstruction charges in pending cases

Walz administration awarded $2 million to Muslim group fundraising for al Qaeda-linked charity

Trump tries to claw back senior support after gains by Biden and Harris

School choice fights land on state ballots in 2024

California Democrats say they’ve waited a lifetime to watch Harris nominated at DNC

In case you missed it

We watched Trump’s press conference from Bedminster

Virginia tells schools how to make classrooms cellphone-free

Biden’s big climate spending plan is still struggling to get rolling

Trump is not listening to his advisers

For your radar

Biden will receive a group of civil rights leaders and elected officials in the Oval Office to sign a proclamation to designate the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument at 11:15 a.m. He will leave Washington for Camp David at 2 p.m.

Harris will unveil her economic policy platform at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, at 2:45 p.m.