Inside the Trump campaign’s hidden ground game

livemint.com:

GERMANTOWN, Wis.—The Trump campaign’s effective takeover of the Republican National Committee has come with a new approach to on-the-ground canvassing efforts: doing more with less. The party says its get-out-the-vote effort, dubbed “Trump Force 47," is driven by a dedicated army of volunteers. It has been shrouded in secrecy since it launched earlier this year, raising questions in political circles about the ground-game strategy to support Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Behind the scenes, campaign strategists have been revamping what they viewed as an inefficient, bloated and antiquated Republican ground-game model. They argued that trying to play catch up with the Democratic canvassing machine, which has long had vast resources and is deeply rooted in states across the country, was a losing game. Now the GOP is focused on efficiency, not the size of the operation.

“The practical reality is the program devolved to mostly paid staff grinding out door knocking and phones, and it was all about volume, volume, volume, driving as much volume as possible," said James Blair, a top strategist for the Trump campaign. “There’s not good evidence that all voter contacts are created equal." But the party’s field organizing is so small that some local Republican officials say they are anxious it won’t be enough. The RNC has anywhere from a dozen to two dozen offices in battleground states, while President Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee have about 200 across the country, with nearly 50 here in Wisconsin alone.

The Biden campaign has gone so far as to question whether Trump has a ground game. Despite an intentionally smaller footprint, the organizing looks a lot like traditional field work. On a