Donald Trump’s ground game strategy: Rely on help from outside organizations like Turning Point

Donald Trump’s campaign is taking a vastly different approach to 2024 compared to 2020, with plans for fewer staff and expenses, including what they view as superfluous brick and mortar offices. Instead, the campaign pledges to run a more efficient operation that will rely 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.

Donald Trump’s campaign is taking a vastly different approach to 2024 compared to 2020, with plans for fewer staff and expenses, including what they view as superfluous brick and mortar offices. Instead, the campaign pledges to run a more efficient operation that will rely 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. “[The] ability to work with outside groups on field work alleviates the need to have the same size staff footprint as in previous cycles, allowing us to retain a greater share of resources for advertising and paid voter contact programs than in past cycles,” a senior Trump adviser told CNN. Of those groups, perhaps one of the most important is Turning Point Action, which is hosting Trump in Michigan Saturday, 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 dollars 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. “You need boots on the ground to win an election,” one veteran Democratic strategist said, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly. “[The Biden campaign] is far outpacing Trump’s operation on this front.”