I’ve been pointing this out for a while, but now the media is noticing: Trump is relying on his “election integrity” goons to intimidate voters.. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll use the chaos they create to contest the election. They aren’t even trying to legitimately win.
Some Republicans worry that Trump’s focus on preventing a “rigged” election has hurt the party’s ground game, the get-out-the-vote operations that can be crucial in an election as close as this one.
Trump’s “election integrity” team also has raised concerns among Democrats about potential voter intimidation at the polls.
If Trump loses on Nov. 5, the election teams would be his evidence collectors for what almost certainly would be a barrage of legal challenges — and calls for state officials not to certify the election results.
Early on, Trump told his team to pour its resources into “election integrity” efforts, saying that he’d take care of generating excitement and turning out voters for his campaign against President Biden.
But now that Biden has stepped aside, Trump faces an invigorated Democratic ticket led by Vice President Kamala Harris, who’s benefitting from the robust ground operation the Biden-Harris campaign built in swing states.
The difference between the Harris and Trump door-to-door campaigns is evident in several states, especially the seven swing states likely to decide the election — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Harris’ team says 330,000 people have worked as volunteers since she announced her campaign last month. The campaign has about 1,500 staffers.
After months of declining to specify the scope of Trump’s ground operations, Trump campaign political director James Blair posted on X that the campaign has hundreds of paid staffers.
Blair told Axios the campaign has 14,000 trained volunteers or “Trump Force 47 Captains” in battleground states. He added that the operation has more volunteers but would not elaborate. Blair also disputed the size of Harris’ volunteer force, calling it “fake numbers on a spreadsheet.”
Trump is relying on Turning Point USA, the Sentinel Action Fund, conservative activist Scott Presler’s group Early Vote Action, and the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s network of churches and Elon Musk’s America PAC to get out the vote. Reports are theat none of them have a clue what they’re doing.
Meanwhile Trump’s campaign has allegedly trained about 160,000 “poll watchers”
At Trump rallies in swing states, large signs with QR codes asking attendees to sign up to “Protect the Vote” are everywhere.
RNC chair Michael Whatley told Axios the goal is to have 5,000 “election integrity volunteers” in each battleground state.
Whatley also told Axios their GOTV operation is aimed at people who haven’t voted before. Maybe they should just start handing out cash?
It’s possible this is all bluster. If their amateur hour of a convention is any example, this campaign is not exactly first rate. But Trump has said repeatedly that there’s no need for a GOTV operation because he is all that’s needed to get his people out to the polls. He certainly believes that. But his rallies aren’t really pulling like they used to and it’s possible that the show has gone on just a little too long, even for the faithful.