Republicans in swing states see little evidence of groups going door-to-door for Trump

LANSING, Mich. — Republican activists in swing states say they have seen little of the teams tasked with knocking on doors and mobilizing casual voters on behalf of Donald Trump, raising concerns that the party's presidential nominee is relying on outside groups for a key part of his campaign efforts.

Trump and the Republican National Committee he controls have chosen to share the responsibilities of voter mobilization in key parts of the most contested states this year with groups like America PAC, the organization backed by billionaire Elon Musk.

It's hard to prove nothing is happening. But with less than 50 days to go before the Nov. 5 election, dozens of Republican officials, activists and campaigners in Michigan, North Carolina and other swing states say they have rarely or never seen the group's poll workers. In Arizona and Nevada, the Musk-backed political action committee replaced its door-to-door campaign company just last week.

“I haven't seen anyone,” said Nate Wilkowski, field director for the Republican Party in vote-rich Oakland County, Michigan, which includes key Detroit suburbs. He was specifically talking about America PAC. “Nobody told me they were in the Oakland County areas.”

Trump has relied on the loyalty of his fervent electorate in an election that is expected to hinge on turnout. But the scant evidence 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 neck-and-neck among likely voters, but believes it has the edge among people who stayed away in 2016 and 2020, making it all the more important to reach them.

This work is especially important in Michigan, where Trump lost by fewer than 160,000 votes in 2020 and where Republicans began the year with a mountain of debt and an ugly battle for the state's rightful party leadership.

Michigan Republican Chairman Pete Hoekstra said he was told that America PAC poll workers arrived and began work in late August. A PAC spokesman said poll workers were deployed in Michigan, as well as Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – the seven most contested states. The spokesman declined to say how many poll workers were in each state.

Meghan Reckling, owner of a Republican campaign firm in Michigan, said she spotted two America PAC campaign workers in Oakland County on Tuesday. They were identified by blue polo shirts with the word “America” ​​on them and were working in an area that Reckling's own data showed had low voter propensity, she said.

“As you could see, they had a very pleasant exchange with the lady who opened the door and probably spoke to her for five minutes,” said Reckling. “From what I noticed, they were obviously having direct conversations.”

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

“I don't know what the PACs are doing,” said Mark Forton, the Republican chairman in Macomb County, Michigan, a densely populated suburb northeast of Detroit. “I don't know if they're going door-to-door.”

Trump aides say the campaign has about 30,000 volunteer leaders who identify less likely voters at the local level, including through neighborhood outreach efforts.

Campaign political director James Blair also estimates that there are nearly 2,500 paid poll workers in the seven states, the majority of whom are America PAC. The PAC has paid campaign firms more than $14 million for their work on the presidential campaign since mid-August, according to Federal Election Commission spending reports filed by the organization.

Blair rejected claims that the campaign was outsourcing work to outside groups. Instead, he said, the campaign was “using the resources of those groups to increase the frequency of outreach and overall coverage in the area where we want it.”

“We are very focused on low-propensity voters because that makes the most strategic sense in terms of how the president is going to win those states, and the efforts of those groups have helped reach them,” Blair said.

America PAC is run by former top aides of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' failed presidential campaign. Trump's team shares responsibility for reaching out to less frequent voters with groups like Turning Point USA, led by conservative millennial star Charlie Kirk, and the Faith and Freedom Coalition, led by Christian conservative Ralph Reed.

One of the reasons the campaign made this move was an FEC ruling this year that allowed a candidate's campaign and outside groups to coordinate their campaign activities with super PACs, and specifically to share voter lists and data they collect door-to-door. That means campaigns can share much of their labor- and cost-intensive ground campaigning with groups that can accept unlimited donations.

Harris's on-the-ground outreach efforts in the seven states are being run by campaign-paid staff, which the campaign estimates at nearly 2,200 employees in more than 328 offices. Campaign aides said groups affiliated with unions are canvassing independently of the campaign.

The vast majority of outside groups supporting Harris are advertising. Based on ad reservations for Harris and the leading Super PAC supporting her, they are expected to spend nearly $175 million more through Election Day than Trump's campaign and the leading Super PACs supporting him. Harris' campaign has spent twice as much on advertising as Trump's campaign since entering the race on July 23, according to media monitoring firm AdImpact.

Last week, complications arose for America PAC, the most prominent group supporting Trump in 2024.

America PAC has fired Nevada-based campaign firm September Group, two people familiar with the matter say. America PAC had paid the firm nearly $2.7 million a month ago, FEC reports say. The people familiar with the September Group firing 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 tasks to outside groups, but for some of the others who have tried it, the arrangement has not gone smoothly.

Last year, DeSantis entrusted much of the political outreach for his Republican presidential campaign to a super PAC called Never Back Down. However, shortly before the Iowa caucuses, conflicts arose between the board and key campaign staff. Although DeSantis entered the campaign with around $100 million, he dropped out after losing the first Iowa caucus.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush tried something similar in his unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016: He left much of the work of developing political infrastructure 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.