Presidential campaigns usually run their get-out-the-vote operations using campaign staff and volunteers. But in this election cycle, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign made a big and risky gamble: outsourcing the bulk of its ground game to America PAC, an outside group founded by tech titan Elon Musk. That move followed the Federal Election Commission’s decision to allow campaigns, for the first time, to work more closely with outside groups on GOTV operations.
That gamble appears to not be paying off. Reuters reports that, according to people involved in America PAC’s efforts, the group “is struggling in some swing states to meet door-knocking goals and is investigating claims that some canvassers lied about the number of voters they have contacted.” And The Guardian reports that, according to people familiar with the matter and leaked data, one-quarter of the door knocks the group claims it has executed in Arizona and Nevada are “potentially fraudulent.” The reports raise the possibility that the Trump campaign is many thousands of door knocks behind its goals for contacting voters. (According to The Guardian, the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment and “America Pac denied it was experiencing that level of actual fraud in Arizona and Nevada and declined to comment on reporting for this story.”)
Trump's rally strategy is approaching the level of self-sabotage.
The Trump campaign appears to be incurring the costs of bucking common-sense strategies for voter turnout operations. Usually, a campaign would want to go the proven route of working with state parties and their regional field operations and avoid delegating critical work to networks of outside organizations.
Trump’s potential own goal on voter turnout is hardly an isolated misjudgment. In recent weeks the Trump’s campaign’s decision-making has appeared to be shockingly irrational and disorganized. With these missteps, Trump could be blowing his chances of winning the election. And if he were to win, then those missteps provide a preview of a Trump term that would be even more chaotic and incompetent than the first one.
One of Trump’s biggest head-scratchers in recent weeks has been a string of event and interview cancellations. Trump abruptly canceled a virtual town hall with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday, citing scheduling changes. Which wouldn’t be that strange except that it comes after a ton of last-second no-shows. My colleague Steve Benen rounded several of them up:
-Trump agreed to appear on CBS’s “60 Minutes” before canceling.
-He agreed to appear on CNBC before canceling.
-He reportedly planned to sit down for an interview with the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia before canceling.
-He was reportedly in conversations for weeks with The Shade Room about a sit-down interview before withdrawing.
-His campaign said he’d debate Kamala Harris more than once, but he soon after scrapped those plans, too.
It’s highly unusual for a presidential candidate to withdraw from so many media appearances, particularly in the final weeks of the election. At this moment, every hour matters. Ever the compulsive self-promoter, Trump would know that every interview is an opportunity to make news, make his closing arguments and stay top of mind for voters. Which makes the cancellations appear to be self-defeating.
Similarly, Trump’s rally strategy is approaching the level of self-sabotage. As I argued last week, the former president’s baffling decision to tour several blue states — some of them repeatedly — in the final weeks of the campaign could cost him major opportunities to persuade swing state voters to cast their ballots for him.
But when he was in a swing state last week, he swayed to music for 40 minutes in what was one of the strangest displays in modern presidential campaign history. As quirky as Trump has always been, he hasn’t ever so powerfully elicited questions of whether he’s in his right mind.
What explains Trump’s streak of increasingly bizarre behavior? Theories abound, from declining mental acuity to fatigue to overzealous attempts to telegraph confidence. I’d guess it’s a combination of all of those factors. What we do know is that the behavior that Trump and his team are exhibiting makes the prospect of another Trump term concerning for reasons other than his awful policy positions and plans. Unpredictability and irrationality are extremely dangerous in a president, especially when it comes to tasks such as managing foreign affairs.
Trump’s apparent exhaustion and inability to follow through with plans makes it possible that he would be more subdued and less effective in pursuing his nationalist and authoritarian agenda. Passing laws requires a lot of work and persuasion, and Trump may be less up to the task than he would’ve been otherwise. But for the most part, Trump’s growing inscrutability is worrying. A clear, rational mind is a nonnegotiable trait for overseeing diplomacy and warfare and managing nuclear risk. And if Trump is more prone to succumb to impulse and emotion, then his commitments to using executive authority to empower himself could grow even fiercer — and more disastrous for American democracy.