‘I haven't seen anybody': Republicans in swing states say they rarely see groups door-knocking for Trump

Republican activists in swing states say they have seen little sign of the teams tasked with knocking on doors and turning out infrequent voters on behalf of Donald Trump, raising concerns about the party's presidential nominee relying on outside groups for an important part of his campaign operations.

Trump and the Republican National Committee he controls opted to share get-out-the-vote duties in key parts of the most competitive states this year with groups such as America PAC, the organization supported by billionaire Elon Musk.

It is difficult to demonstrate that something is not happening. But with fewer than 50 days until the Nov. 5 election, dozens of Republican officials, activists and operatives in Michigan, North Carolina and other battleground states say they have rarely or never witnessed the group’s canvassers. In Arizona and Nevada, the Musk-backed political action committee replaced its door-knocking company just this past week.

“I haven’t seen anybody," said Nate Wilkowski, field director for the Republican Party in vote-rich Oakland County, Michigan, which includes crucial Detroit suburbs. He was speaking specifically of America PAC. “Nobody’s given me a heads-up that they’re around in Oakland County areas.”

Trump has relied on the loyalty of his fervent base, in an election expected to pivot on turnout. The spotty evidence, however, of what was portrayed as a sophisticated operation has some party activists questioning the operation's value. Trump’s campaign views the race with Vice President Kamala Harris as a toss-up among likely voters but believes it has the edge among people who stayed away in 2016 and 2020, making it even more essential to reach them.

The work is particularly important in Michigan, where Trump lost by fewer than 160,000 votes in 2020, and where the GOP began the year mired in debt and fighting an ugly contest over the rightful state party leader.

Michigan’s Republican chairman, Pete Hoekstra, said he was told that America PAC canvassers had arrived in late August and were at work. A spokesperson for the PAC said canvassers were in Michigan, as well as Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the seven most competitive states. The spokesperson declined to say how many canvassers there were across the states.

Meghan Reckling, a Republican canvassing firm owner in Michigan, said she spotted two America PAC canvassers Tuesday in Oakland County. Identifiable in blue polo shirts emblazoned with “America,” they were working an area that Reckling’s own data showed to be one with low-propensity voters, she said.

“They had, you could tell, a very pleasant exchange with the lady who answered the door, and probably talked to her for five minutes,” Reckling said. “From what I observed, they were obviously engaging in direct conversations.”

But in interviews with more than two dozen activists and party officials across the seven battleground states, such reports were rare.

“I don’t know what the PACs are doing,” said Mark Forton, the GOP chair in Macomb County, Michigan, a populous, suburban area northeast of Detroit. “I don’t know if they are going door to door."

Trump aides say the campaign has an estimated 30,000 volunteer captains who are identifying less likely voters at the local level, including through neighborhood canvassing.

Campaign political director James Blair also estimates that close to 2,500 paid canvassers, with America PAC making up a significant chunk, are working in the seven states. The PAC has paid canvassing firms more than $14 million since mid-August for work on the presidential campaign, according to Federal Election Commission spending reports filed by the group.

Blair dismissed the statement that the campaign was ceding work to outside groups. Instead, he said, the campaign was making use of “the resources within those groups to bolster the frequency of contacts and the total coverage within the universe of where we would want them.”

“We very much are focused on low-propensity voters, because it’s what makes strategically the most sense in terms of how the president is going to win these states, and these groups’ efforts have helped reach them,” Blair said.

America PAC is run by former top aides to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ failed presidential campaign. Trump’s team also is sharing the responsibility of reaching less-frequent voters with groups that include Turning Point USA, led by conservative millennial personality Charlie Kirk, and the Faith and Freedom Coalition, headed by Christian conservative figure Ralph Reed.

Part of the reason for the campaign’s move was the result of an FEC ruling this year that a candidate’s campaign and outside groups could coordinate their canvassing efforts with super PACs, and specifically share voter lists and data that they collect door to door. It means campaigns could share much of their labor- and cost-heavy ground efforts with groups that can take unlimited donations.

Harris’ outreach on the ground in the seven states is being led by campaign-paid staff, a number the campaign puts at nearly 2,200 in more than 328 offices. Campaign aides said groups affiliated with labor organizations were canvassing independent of the campaign.

The vast majority of what outside groups that support Harris are doing is advertising. Based on ad reservations for Harris and the leading super PAC supporting her, they are on track to spend nearly $175 million more than Trump’s campaign and the leading super PACs supporting him by Election Day. Harris’ campaign has outspent Trump’s on advertising by 2-to-1 since she entered the race on July 23, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.

Over the past week, there were complications for America PAC, the most high-profile of the groups helping Trump in 2024.

America PAC fired Nevada-based canvassing company September Group, according to two people familiar with the matter. America PAC had paid the company almost $2.7 million a month ago, according to FEC reports. The people familiar with September Group’s dismissal spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private business decisions.

A spokesman for America PAC declined to confirm the move.

Trump is not the first candidate to delegate some typical campaign-managed duties to outside groups. But the arrangement has not gone smoothly for some of the others who have tried it.

Last year, DeSantis entrusted much of the political outreach for his Republican presidential campaign to a super PAC called Never Back Down, with conflict between its board and top campaign personnel late in the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses. Despite starting the campaign with roughly $100 million, DeSantis dropped out after losing the first contest in Iowa.

In his unsuccessful quest for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush attempted something very similar, ceding much of the political infrastructure work to a super PAC called Right to Rise, which raised more than $114 million in 2015.

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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.