I wrote a lot earlier in the month about the questions marks surrounding the Republican and Trump ground operations in this election. To recap, the campaign outsourced most of its efforts to a series of super PACs, which has ended up mainly being Elon Musk’s America PAC. The initial driver of the whole thing was Turning Points Action, which critics rather presciently predicted didn’t have the organizational heft or experience to do something at that scale. The Trump campaign itself has focused on what is at least a pretty unconventional approach, largely ceding conventional ground operations in favor of focusing on Trump-identified non-voters. My read on that whole question is that there are lots of red flags and lots of smoke. But just what it will all mean or the impact it will have I’m not sure. TPM Reader CH wrote in today to ask me what is going on on the Democratic side. Do we assume Harris has a strong ground operation or is that a wobbly assumption?
Here’s what I told him.
Let’s treat it as a given that things are very murky. Our visibility or at least my visibility is limited. You can also have the smartest people and lots of funding and maybe they just have a bad strategy. All that said, the Harris campaign has clearly invested a lot of resources in a robust ground operation. And they’ve been at it for months. (A lot of investments predate the candidate switch.) I also think we have lots of evidence that the Democratic activist base is highly, highly energized. And that’s what you base a get-out-the-vote operation on — volunteers. So I would be very surprised if the Dems didn’t end up having at least a solid ground operation in this election.
It’s worth remembering that ground operations of any sort only get you so far. I don’t think there’s any hard baselines to this. But I think it’s fair to say that a great ground operation or having a much better one maybe allows you to move the final one or maybe two points in your direction? Obviously in a close race that can be everything. States in 2020 were down to tenths of a percentage point. My point is that ground operations are inherently marginal drivers. You’re not losing by 5 points and you make that up on the ground.
So to recap, I think the situation on the GOP is a legitimate question mark. Lots of red flags. If it goes poorly for them there will be plenty of evidence that you can point to and say this was clear a mile away. But it’s foolish to think these people are idiots. It might all work out for them. Their voters may be motivated enough that a half-assed operation is enough. Legit question mark. I think Dems’ operation will be at least solid.
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