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Hunters, Truckers And The Amish: Inside Republicans’ ‘Aggressive’ New Ballot-Chasing Plan For November

August 15, 2024/in Culture War, Elections, Featured, Hot Topics, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Social Issues/by The Daily Caller

Come November, every hunter, trucker and Amish person across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will have a ballot in their hands if the GOP’s expansive get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort goes according to plan.

For years there have been restrictions on how the Republican National Committee (RNC) and presidential campaigns could work with door-knocking groups. That all changed in March when a Federal Election Commission (FEC) advisory opinion eased restrictions on coordination between such groups.

Now, a large portion of Republicans’ GOTV efforts are being outsourced to prominent conservative organizations, who are running an aggressive ground game across several states including Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the Daily Caller learned.

“80,000 votes [in Pennsylvania] decided 2020, so let’s break that down. There are 90,000 Amish in Pennsylvania. That is the election. So we are courting the Amish vote, and we’re going to farmers markets, and we’re going to their villages, their towns. We’re meeting them where they are,” Scott Presler, the founder of Early Vote Action, told the Caller.

“There are 80,000 truckers in Pennsylvania … a lot of them don’t vote because they’re driving rigs on election day. So we’re trying to get them the mail-in ballot. We’re trying to get them to vote early, because if they’re driving how are they going to vote? That 80,000 number could very well win Pennsylvania,” he continued.

As of a few months ago, the RNC has also been coordinating with Turning Point Action on its GOTV efforts, a GOP spokesperson told the Caller. Various other groups that work with Turning Point Action, including Presler’s Early Vote Action and Cliff Maloney’s The Pennsylvania Chase, are in frequent communication with the party about its work and consistently share data as the election nears, they told the Caller.

“We are in lockstep with the party. We are in lockstep with the statewide campaigns, and we are doing everything we can legally to coordinate and to share data so that we are all working in harmony,” Maloney told the Caller.

Turning Point Action is heading up a considerable amount of the get-out-the-vote efforts across the country as it works to replicate the Democratic Party’s “hub and spoke model,” a spokesperson told the Caller. On the right, the RNC is playing “quarterback” and overseeing the GOTV operation while the grassroots organizations focus on their specialties and periodically meet with the party to provide updates.

Following the 2022 election, Turning Point Action, just a fraction of the size it is now, decided it was time to get serious about its GOTV work. The new Trump-endorsed RNC leadership, the organization told the Caller, has been willing to support ground game programs — something the group did not have previously.

To bulk up its efforts, Turning Point Action built up an app that provides information on who in an area is a low-propensity voter. When that voter is identified, the app users are provided scripts for door-to-door work, postcards and text messages to use to approach the individual.

A Turning Point Action spokesperson told the Caller that the organization has hundreds of full-time staff members devoted to the get-out-the-vote effort in Arizona and Wisconsin. The spokesperson added that the organization is ramping up its initiative in Michigan, a pivot from its initial plan of focusing on Georgia, because it saw more opportunities in the Wolverine state.

“There are 400 to 600 low propensity voters within a territory. And we put a full-time body on that territory and their goal is to knock on the doors of 400 to 600 low-propensity voters, get to know them, and be a good neighbor and a resource to them. For every 18-20 ballot chaser we assign a manager as their direct report, and then that goes up to a state director, and then an enterprise director. Everyone is accountable up and down the process,” the spokesperson told the Caller.

While Turning Point Action focuses its staff primarily on Arizona and Wisconsin, other organizations are using the app to target other states. In Pennsylvania, which both Democrats and Republicans have identified as one of the most important states in the election, Presler and Maloney are deploying a complex effort.

Using its own app modeled after Turning Point Action’s, Presler’s Early Vote Action is targeting key demographics, such as the Amish, truckers, veterans and hunters, that he believes have the ability to flip the state red. Presler explained that the state of Pennsylvania has 800,000 veterans and 930,000 hunters, but 30% of those hunters are not registered to vote.

“With that number being larger than 300,000 when the state was lost by 80,000, it very well could be hunters and gun owners and gun enthusiasts that save the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Presler told the Caller.

“So we, for the last year and a half, have made a direct effort, going to the Monroeville Gun Show, to the great American outdoor Gun Show, to the Philly Expo Center, going to every single gun show, gun store, gun range, meeting hunters where they are, and really courting their vote,” he continued.

Similarly to Turning Point Action’s app, Presler’s gives its 30,000 users the ability to call, text and write postcards from anywhere in the country to low-propensity voters in states like Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“One woman in particular, her name is Marcella. She has written over 2,500 handwritten postcards as a grandma from California into Pennsylvania alone,” Presler said.

While Presler focuses on getting ballots in the hands of thousands of Pennsylvanians, Maloney’s group is gearing up to chase the vote into the ballot box.

“We’re hiring 120 full-time ballot chasers September one through Election Day. We’re knocking on 500,000 doors, and specifically doors where Republicans have a mail-in ballot sitting on their dining room table,” Maloney told the Caller. “That’s important because if you look back to 2020, Trump lost by 80,000 votes, 141,000 Republicans — I’m not even including independent Republicans — 141,000 Republicans requested a ballot. They got the ballot and they never sent it back. And why would they? Nobody knocked on their door.”

Beginning on Sept. 1, those 120 ballot chasers will be dispatched to ten locations across the state where they will go door-to-door. Until then, Maloney will continue fundraising for the operation. The group sits just a half a million dollars away from its goal of $2.5 million.

As the RNC expands its field operations and grassroots organizations handle the ground game, the party is also focused on election integrity efforts.

Before the RNC leadership change, legal experts expressed concerns about the state of the election integrity landscape. In March, a Daily Caller analysis found that a number of key battleground states, including those that delivered Biden the presidency, were poised to use many of the election procedures in 2024 that outraged Republicans in 2020.

Since Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara and North Carolina GOP Chairman Michael Whatley assumed leadership of the party, the GOP has filed numerous lawsuits, many regarding states’ voter rolls.

“The Trump campaign and the RNC are much better prepared this time, and while there’s a lot of work to be done, they’ve done a very good job of hiring the right team and devoting the right resources,” Mike Davis, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and founder of the Article 3 Project, previously told the Caller.

Despite the RNC’s extensive work, some laws remain in place — but Maloney says that’s okay, it just makes their work more crucial.

“In Pennsylvania, there’s now 50 days of vote by mail, which is just insane, but it’s reality. So you got to play by the current rules. And I think for a while, we were hoping the lawmakers would change it. They didn’t. We were hoping the courts would change it. They didn’t,” Maloney told the Caller. “And now I think we’re just looking in the mirror saying ‘it’s time to go to war.’”
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Reagan Reese

White House reporter. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

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‘Dam Is Going To Break’: Trump Insiders Forecast Counterattack Against Kamala’s Basement Campaign

August 9, 2024/in Elections, Featured, Hot Topics, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues/by Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)

Vice President Kamala Harris has hardly taken a question since becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee nearly three weeks ago. But that hasn’t stopped her from riding a wave of media hype into a statistical tie with Donald Trump, all without having to explain her newfound positions or Biden administration record.

The Trump campaign has a plan to put pressure on Harris and bring her into the spotlight, and it starts with Senator J.D. Vance, insiders told the Caller. While Trump has done various media appearances and taken questions in recent weeks, going forward, Vance will follow Harris on the campaign trail in an effort to draw a contrast to her policies and highlight her media avoidance.

“To highlight that, Senator Vance and President Trump are showing up where Kamala Harris is not,” a campaign spokesperson, granted anonymity to preview strategy, told the Caller. The spokesperson pointed out that Trump attended the National Association of Black Journalists conference when Harris did not. Trump has also appeared with non-traditional media personalities, including streamer Adin Ross and Elon Musk.

“Senator Vance is doing the same by going to the same places that Kamala Harris is going but refusing to take questions. Anyone can show up in a state and read off of a script, off a teleprompter, and then leave 20 minutes later, that’s exactly what Joe Biden was doing, and it didn’t work for him. We’re not going to let it work,” the spokesperson continued.

Once Biden bowed out of the presidential race and endorsed Harris, his vice president almost instantly launched her campaign. With the changing of candidates, the Democratic party, once riddled with infighting and anxiety, became filled with energy and excitement. Harris brought in an influx of cash and began hosting packed rallies.

But in the 18 days the campaign has been on the road, Harris has not done a sit down interview, held a press conference or allowed for many unscripted moments. In fact, Biden is slated to do a sit down interview, appearing on CBS News on Sunday, before Harris does.

Harris finally took some questions from reporters for the first time Thursday from a tarmac on the campaign trail. She didn’t address her drastic changes in policy since her failed 2020 presidential campaign, but did say she was shooting to set up at least one interview with the media by the end of the month.

She added that she was “open” to the idea of additional debates with Trump, who said at a press conference earlier in the day that he had agreed to three.

The Trump campaign’s strategy was on full display Wednesday when Vance deplaned in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and walked over to where Air Force Two was sitting on the tarmac. When Vance arrived, Harris had already left reporters waiting in the wind.

“I wanted to take a good look at the plane, because hopefully it’s going to be my plane in a few months, but I also thought you guys might get lonely, because the Vice President doesn’t answer questions from reporters and hasn’t for 17 days,” Vance told the journalists.

“Well, I hope that she changes her mind, because it would be good for the American people and I think it would be good for you all if she actually ran a real campaign instead of one from her basement with a teleprompter,” Vance said.

Rather than a solo interview, there are plans to have Harris appear alongside her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for a joint interview ahead of the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19, two people familiar with the campaign’s thinking told Politico. One longtime Harris ally told the outlet that the vice president could avoid interviews until Labor Day, and the vice president’s inner circle is reportedly skeptical that doing such appearances would be beneficial.

Under pressure from Vance, the Trump campaign expects Harris’ media avoidance to be put on full display.

“The dam is going to break,” one source said.

Harris’ hermit strategy, which some have equated to a basement campaign, comes from a lack of pressing from the media, GOP strategist Shermichael Singleton told the Caller.

“It’s sustainable as long as the media allows it to be sustainable,” Singleton told the Caller.

“This is a historic moment. She’s a first, she will be the first woman of color to become the nominee of a major party. That alone warrants a sit down interview.”

Harris’ ability to dodge the press could be attributed to the off-the-record chats she is frequently granting reporters who travel with her on Air Force Two. When the vice president speaks on an issue on the record, she has chosen to address reporters from the tarmac without taking questions.

“[Harris] hasn’t done an interview. She can’t do an interview, she is barely competent and she can’t do an interview,” Trump said during his Thursday press conference.

The strategy to pull Harris out into the media doesn’t stop with Vance though, insiders told the Caller.

The Republican party plans to use its Twitter accounts, which combined have millions of followers, as well as surrogates, to hammer Harris on her previous statements and flip-flopping, a GOP source told the Caller. Such pressure, they believe, will force her into unscripted moments to defend her record.

Less than a week into her campaign, the Republican National Committee’s rapid response account starting pointing out that Harris was yet to have an unscripted moment, press conference or interview. Other affiliated accounts, including Trump’s war room, have followed suit.

The accounts have also repeatedly broadcasted old statements of Harris’, and her campaign’s reversal on many of her policy beliefs over the last few days. Since beginning her run for president, Harris’ campaign walked back her previous endorsement on a fracking ban, her support for mandatory federal gun buybacks and the abolition of private health insurance, according to The New York Times. Notably, the reversals have come from Harris campaign staffers, rather than the vice president herself.

Amid the changing of positions — and now controversy surrounding Harris’ VP pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — the Trump campaign is stepping up to fill void of pressure on their opponent.

“We’ve now started to send out daily email blasts with questions that the press should be asking Kamala. I would certainly point that out as part of the strategy, just keeping the pressure on, because they need to answer tough questions, and the American people deserve to hear from them,” the campaign spokesperson told the Caller.

Thursday’s email titled “18 DAYS LATER: Three Questions for Kamala Harris” was penned by Trump Campaign Communications Director Steven Cheung, who provided three questions that he says Harris ought to answer.

The questions dealt with Walz, whose 2005 retirement from the Minnesota National Guard after a 24-year career has come into question following a resurfaced 2018 Facebook post by retired Army Command Sergeant Major Thomas Behrends. Behrends replaced Walz as the top enlisted man in an artillery battalion after his sudden retirement.

“You chose Tim Walz as your running mate because he reflects the values you hold. He has now been exposed as a liar and fraud. Is this pick a self-reflection of yourself? Why did you layer the former Biden campaign staff with Obama’s team? Do you not have confidence with Team Biden? When is your next press conference?” Cheung wrote in his email.

If the trend of the last two weeks continues, it’s possible the first big unscripted moment for Harris will come on the debate stage. The former president drew contrast between he and Harris’ media availability on Thursday during his hour long press conference where he took many questions from reporters. Trump also announced that he had agreed to three presidential debates, one of which both parties have decided to attend on Sept. 10.

“I look forward to the debates because I think we have to set the record straight,” Trump said.

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