Trump team 'making serious gamble' turning get-out-the-vote efforts over to outside allies

Donald Trump has captured the Republican Party for nearly a decade, and his 2024 campaign could undermine GOP control of election strategies moving forward.

The former president's team is "making a serious gamble," according to a New York Times report, by enlisting outside groups they don't directly control to "carry out their marching orders without accountability" following a surprise decision by the Federal Election Commission that allows campaigns to outsource their canvassing efforts with super PACs and other outside groups.

“We have to accept it,” said Chris Carr, who helped lead Trump's ground game in 2020 and has long encouraged Republicans to outsource those operations. “Outside groups are going to do more and more of this. But the cautionary tale for donors and for everybody else is: Are they actually doing what they said they’d do?”

ALSO READ: Harris has figured out Trump’s greatest liability

GOP campaigns and outside groups have previously run simultaneous but independent paid canvassing campaigns, but three sources said the Trump team quickly invited big-money organizations to Mar-a-Lago to begin coordinating those get-out-the-vote efforts to conservative organizations to save money that could be used elsewhere.

Trump's political director James Blair, who has worked with paid-canvassing operations like Turning Point Action and America First Works, is coordinating strategies with those groups and others, including Turnout for America, whose leader Chris Buskirk is close friends with J.D. Vance.

“Our mission is simply to execute on the president’s ground game plan — the thought leadership is theirs,” said Buskirk, who describes his group's role as a substitute for the campaign's field operation. “The ads and the air war are theirs. The on-the-ground-muscle is ours.”

Despite the cost savings, GOP campaign veterans warn that voters may be confused or put off by outside groups who don't know their area dropping in to knock on doors.

"They should research their marks and start reaching out through Facebook groups, community events, or neighborly gestures such as recommending plumbers or harp teachers," said Turning Point's Tyler Bowyer at a training session in Wisconsin. "They could even arrange seemingly chance encounters on coffee runs or dog walks."

However, one attendee pointed out that made them sound like "professional stalkers," but Bowyer was prepared with a slide pleading with the paid canvassers: "BE NORMAL. BE NORMAL. BE NORMAL.”

Democrats have not yet become as reliant as Republicans to coordinate with paid canvassers, but that's largely because labor unions are allowed to coordinate their communications to members with campaigns – a dynamic of which Republicans have long envied.

“The past two cycles, we have not invested in field and we’ve lost,” said Meghan Cox, who runs a conservative grass-roots firm. “Democrats invest heavy in field, and they’ve seen success, and we need to do the same or we’re going to continue to find ourselves in the same boat.”