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Trump Slow to Invest in Swing States 03/27 06:07
NEW YORK (AP) -- In his bid to retake the White House, few states hold as
much promise for Donald Trump as Michigan.
The former president has already won the state once and President Joe Biden,
who reclaimed it for Democrats in 2020, is confronting vulnerabilities there as
he seeks reelection. Trump's campaign promises an aggressive play for Michigan
as part of a robust swing-state strategy.
But, at least for now, those promises appear to be mostly talk. The Trump
campaign and its partners at the Republican National Committee haven't yet made
significant general election investments in the state, according to Michigan
Republican Party Chairman Pete Hoekstra. The national committee, he said,
hasn't transferred any money to the state party to help bolster its operations
heading into the general election. There are no specific programs in place to
court voters of color. And there's no general election field staff in place.
"We've got the skeleton right now," Hoekstra said. "We're going to have to
put more meat on it."
It's much the same in presidential battleground states across the country,
according to Republican operatives and party officials involved in campaign
planning elsewhere.
Widely praised for its professionalism and effectiveness throughout the
primary phase of the 2024 election, Trump's political operation has been slow
to pivot toward the general election in the weeks after executing a hostile
takeover of the Republican Party's national political machinery. In fact, the
former president's team has rolled back plans under previous leaders to add
hundreds of staff and dozens of new minority-outreach centers in key states
without offering a clear alternative.
Indeed, just six months before the first early votes are cast in the general
election between Trump and Biden, Trump's Republican Party has little general
election infrastructure to speak of.
Officials on the ground in top swing states are not panicking, but the
disparity with the Biden campaign is stark.
This month alone, Biden opened 100 new offices and added more than 350 new
staffers in swing states from Arizona to Georgia to Pennsylvania, according to
campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa. That's in addition to the Democratic
president's existing battleground-state staff of 100 that was already in place.
Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita, who is now also running
operations at the RNC, declined to detail any of the Republican campaign's
plans.
"By combining forces, the Trump campaign and the RNC are deploying
operations fueled by passionate volunteers who care about saving America and
firing Joe Biden," he said. "We do not feel obligated, however, to discuss the
specifics of our strategy, timing, or tactics with members of the news media."
Trump may be discussing strategy with some state Republican officials behind
closed doors.
Hoekstra was among a handful of Michigan Republican leaders who trekked to
Florida last week to meet privately with Trump and members of his senior
campaign team about plans for the general election. The conversation, Hoekstra
said, left him optimistic about the former president's commitment to his state.
"I feel good about where we are," he said. "The Trump team is engaged."
Earlier this month, Trump replaced Republican National Committee Chair Ronna
McDaniel with his new hand-picked leadership team, including daughter-in-law
Lara Trump, who is now RNC co-chair. LaCivita, who took over as the committee's
chief of staff, promised sweeping changes in the GOP's political infrastructure
across the country.
In the days since, more than 60 Republican staffers across the country were
issued layoff notices. They included virtually all the people who staffed the
RNC's minority outreach community centers and others inside the committee's
department of State Parties Strategies.
"There was never a fully cohesive bond between the Trump campaign and the
RNC in the past, and we are now operating as one entity," Lara Trump said
Tuesday on David Webb's SiriusXM Patriot channel program. "We have cut a lot of
fat."
Facing internal pushback on some of the cuts, Lara Trump has vowed that the
committee's half-dozen existing community centers would remain open. But it's
unclear whether Trump's team will follow through on McDaniel's plans to open an
additional 40 community centers in the coming months.
The centers were seen as a critical resource in boosting the Republican
Party's relationships with minority groups who have traditionally voted
Democratic, but may be open to the GOP's populist message. Advocates suggest
that such investments have made a significant impact in recent years,
especially in competitive House districts where several thousand votes can make
a difference.
"It seems that there's a consensus that community centers are vital for the
Republican Party in general," said Shawn Steel, a RNC member from California
who credits a community center in Orange County's Little Saigon with helping
his wife, Rep. Michelle Steele, R-Calif., win her seat.
Democrats, Steel said, have been effectively engaging in minority
communities since New York City's Tammany Hall more than two centuries ago.
"We're trying to catch up," Steel said. "I'm optimistic."
Amid such optimism, however, there is also a deep sense of uncertainty as
Trump's team rewrites the party's 2024 battleground-state strategy after
burning the previous playbook.
Trump's lieutenants have already postponed plans in place before McDaniel's
ouster that would have begun adding hundreds of Republican staffers in
presidential battleground states beginning this month, according to people with
direct knowledge of the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
disclose private conversations.
It's unclear if or when the field staff will eventually be in place.
Recently laid-off staffers have recently begun interviewing for new positions,
although some have been told they must relocate to Florida or new states.
Georgia GOP Chair Joshua McKoon said he has had several meetings with RNC
leadership about "the deployment of additional resources" to his state,
although there is no set timeline.
"What wins elections is having the staff necessary to carry out your
get-out-the-vote plan, so that's what I'm most interested in," McKoon said. "I
certainly expect to have further discussions in the very near future about the
timeline and having some more specifics."
He added, "I feel like we're going to have what we need."
Aware of a building sense of urgency, newly elected RNC Chair Michael
Whatley issued a memo to party officials over the weekend promising that the
committee is "building on our existing programs and expanding our outreach at
the RNC."
He vowed to "re-engage America's working voters," continue to engage rural
voters, and grow Trump's support "with demographics who have not traditionally
voted for our candidates..."
Whatley did not offer any specifics, however, aside from mentioning a new
battleground-state program that would direct officials within the committee's
State Parties Strategies department to work with "auxiliary Republican groups
and other grassroots organizations" in addition to state parties.
Trump's team did not clarify, when asked, which grassroots organizations
Whatley meant, although the chairman before his recent election had
aggressively courted leaders at Turning Point USA, a leading group in Trump's
"Make America Great Again" movement that had been a driving force in McDaniel's
ouster.
On Tuesday, Lara Trump wrote "Awesome!" in sharing a social media post from
Turning Point founder and CEO Charlie Kirk that highlighted the group's efforts
to organize "full-time ballot chasers" in Arizona and other states.
Meanwhile, Biden's campaign earlier in the month launched a $30 million
six-week advertising blitz targeting swing-state voters with a particular focus
on Black and Hispanic-owned outlets and "culture and sports programming such as
Comedy Central and ESPN."
Biden is also hitting the campaign trail with more intensity.
He has campaigned in Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and
Michigan in recent days. He was in North Carolina on Tuesday, signaling the
president's ambition in a state that Trump narrowly won in 2020.
Trump, by contrast, has been hardly seen in public this month aside from his
court appearances.
Moussa, Biden's spokesman, slapped Trump for embracing a general election
strategy focused on "apparently hiding at his country club."
"Meanwhile, the RNC fires staffers, shutters community centers and shuts
down their minority outreach programs. Not exactly how to win the hearts and
minds of the American people -- or get to 270 electoral votes," Moussa said.
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