Trump Is MIA: No One Is Knocking On Doors In Critical Swing States
A sign of a collapsing campaign or a campaign that doesn't care if it loses?
Please support this work by becoming a paying subscriber. This newsletter is free and will always remain free but it still takes time and effort to produce. Your support means everything to me. For just $5 a month or $50 a year, you can keep the Opinionated Ogre going. Thank you!
Earlier this year, Donald Trump put his daughter-in-law Lara in charge of the RNC. Her qualifications for this job were as follows:
Her last name is Trump
See #1
Lara’s job was to turn the RNC into dear daddy-in-law’s personal piggy bank. I promise you, when Trump loses this election and flees the country, watch for the inevitable allegations of money laundering and embezzlement and fraud. The only thing that will keep Lara out of prison is the fact that she’s a rich white woman named Trump. We don’t hold Trumps accountable in this country, you see.
But aside from stealing the curtains and silverware from the RNC, Lara, under orders from Daddy, outsourced one of the RNC’s most important functions: Get out the vote operations in swing states. Fucking brilliant!
Why did they do that? Because GOTV operations cost money.1 Money Donald Trump would rather put in his pocket. So instead of having his party do the work, Trump had PACs do it. Except they didn’t and they still aren’t:
LANSING, Mich. — 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.
…
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.
So…yeah. Things are going just great in the swing states!
There are two critical elements to winning swing states in the closing days of an election. GOTV ground game is one of them and Harris has thousands of volunteers crawling all over Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc. Biden already had a robust operation going and Harris beefed it up considerably with the gazillion dollars she raked in after becoming the nominee.
Trump’s people are claiming that the work is getting done but they’re being super smart about it. That sounds…implausible. This is a campaign that the press swore up and down was SO. GODDAMN. PROFESSIONAL. Over and over they promised that Trump’s campaign was disciplined and organized and that was all bullshit. It’s the same chaos and corruption and idiot drama that always surrounds the orange shitgibbon.
But, Justin, you say, that’s just one critical element! What’s the other? Maybe Trump is doing so well there that he doesn’t NEED a ground game?
Yeah…not so much. The other critical element is ad buys. TV, radio, social media. Wanna know how Trump is doing there? Yes. Yes, you really REALLY do.
As Vice President Harris and former President Donald Trump enter the most expensive stretch of the election, their respective spending habits say a lot about the state of the race. And while polls may be tight, the money race isn't — Harris is outspending Trump by approximately $5 million every single day, according to the most recent federal filings.
The spending divide is particularly apparent in swing states, with the amounts doled out reflecting the importance of each race. Harris is outspending Trump in ad buys in every single swing state, Bloomberg reported based on data from AdImpact.
Both candidates are dumping the most money into Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes, but Harris' spending in ad buys through election day dwarfs Trump's — $195.8 million to his $77.9 million.
WELP! So Trump is trailing by a massive amount in ad buys. Why? Because Trump is trailing by a truly astonishing amount in fundraising:
Vice President Kamala Harris substantially outraised and outspent Donald Trump in August, according to new filings from the Federal Election Commission.
The Harris campaign raised more than $189 million in August, more than quadruple the $44 million sum that the Trump campaign brought in.
Though the Harris campaign also far outspent Trump in August, the vice president ended the month with $404 million in cash on hand, dwarfing Trump’s $295 million war chest to fund the final sprint of the November election.
How much of that already underwhelming Trump money is going to Trump’s lawyers? How much is going to disappear into Trump’s offshore bank accounts? How much will be wasted on Trump properties and consultants and grifters like Laura Loomer?
It certainly is not going to be used on getting sneakers on the pavement in swing states. Some of it will go to ads but who’s going to notice between the nonstop Kamala Harris commercials?
Now, there’s a very real chance that Trump is not bothering with a ground game because he’s planning on stealing the election after he loses. But if so, he’s going about it the worst way possible.
I’ve said this numerous times and I will continue to say it: A coup has to appear legitimate or the public will not accept it.
If Trump loses by 15,000 votes across 3 states, Republicans can easily have those ballots thrown out by corrupt judges and election officials and make it look legitimate. They will not be able to throw out 150,000 ballots. It’s too much. It’s too obvious.
That means Trump should be pursuing this election as if he means to win for no other reason than to make the margin of Harris’ victory as narrow as possible. The narrower it is, the easier it will be to overturn and make it look legitimate.
But by being lazy, corrupt, and stupid, you know, the way Trump is with everything, Donald Dumbass is setting himself up not just to lose, but to lose convincingly. So convincingly that the courts, including the extremely corrupt Republican Justices on the Supreme Court, will not be able to overturn the election. It must look legitimate or the riots start. And not the fake “I’m an angry white racist!” riots. Real ones by people tired of Republicans trying to destroy this country because, honestly, fuck these fascist losers. They can either accept the results of a free and fair election or find out what America does to white nationalist fascists who try to topple our country. Ask the Nazis and Confederates how that went for them.
There are 41 days until the 2024 election. Vote blue like your life depends on it. This is America. No kings. No weirdos. Vote Harris and Walz.
I hope you feel better informed about the world and ready to kick fascists in the teeth to protect it. This newsletter exists because of you, so please consider becoming a supporting subscriber today for only $5 a month or just $50 a year. Thank you for everything!
Also, coordinating thousands of volunteers in multiple states is complicated and they fired most of the staff at the RNC. That means fewer witnesses to the criming but also no one who can do the work.
My friends in my area don’t believe me when I say that the RNC has no ground game. They see “Trump Force 47” shrines pop up in parking lots and think that that’s what GOTV is. It’s not. I had to explain to them that GOTV includes getting undecided voters to the polls, not just hardcore MAGAs who were going to vote anyway.
When I voted in the primaries recently, I saw no Republican precinct delegates on the ballot at all. But the Democrats had five listed on there to vote for. Thats just wild. AND to make matters worse for them, the person (singular) who has canvassed in my neighborhood in the last month for Trump was handing out Trump vs. Biden flyers still! No mention of Kamala Harris. They don’t even have the right election on their flyers!!
SHHHHHHH! You'll give the secret away, and the LAST thing we want to do is have one of the few remaining sane Trump acolytes figure this out and try to get some worthless down- ballot MAGA moron elected to the House or Senate!
Seriously, though, friends i know who are working on campaigns have mentioned this for a couple months now. Orange Julius Ceasar is using the ground-game funds to pay his shitty lawyers in a feeble attempt to keep his shitty ass out of jail. Hopefully, in addition to giving progressives full control of the mechanisms of gum'mint, this will hasten the final demise of the not so grand old party.
Fingers crossed! Let's encourage Donold to spend EVERY dollar on himself, and impoverish his "fellow" RethugliKKKans!