The Election Really Could Come Down to Turnout. That’s Bad for Donald Trump. 

Every national and battleground state poll shows a statistical dead heat, with neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump holding a lead outside the margin of error. 

Many factors could determine the outcome of a race this close. One of those factors is the relative strength of the competing campaigns’ get-out-the-vote [GOTV] operations.  

Door-knocking and phone-banking efforts rarely move the needle much. lan Gerber & Gregory A. Huber, Yale University political scientists, concluded that “if a typical canvassing campaign manages to interact with 25 percent of its targets, then the overall effect on the target group’s turnout is 1 percentage point or less … in a very high turnout election, such as a presidential election, the expected return to a successful contact falls even lower.” However, in a contest where one or more states may be decided by less than a percentage point, the rational strategic decision is to invest money and talent in an effective turnout operation. 

All available evidence indicates that Harris did that and Trump did not.  

And Trump can’t say I didn’t warn him. 

In June, I wrote that Donald Trump’s Get-Out-The-Vote Plan is Bonkers. Here’s the short version. 

In 2023, the far-right Turning Point network shopped around a GOTV plan despite having scant GOTV experience. The plan was premised on eschewing swing voters in densely populated suburbs and cities in favor of chasing ultra-conservative “MAGA” types who mainly live in rural areas and don’t reliably vote. 

Then-Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel gave Turning Point the cold shoulder, and some Republicans warned the plan smelled like a grift. Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk fought back and publicly pressed Trump to shiv McDaniel. Trump obliged, and McDaniel quit under pressure in February 2024. Instead of the RNC and the Trump campaign spearheading the GOTV operation, Turning Point and other outside groups were given the primary responsibility. Since my June dispatch, the right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, through his America PAC, became the main GOTV player in Trumpworld and absorbed some of Turning Point’s infrastructure. His experience winning political campaigns? Zero. 

Over the past three months, several media outlets have filed reports on how well Trump’s unorthodox turnout army is performing. Most suggest it’s a five-alarm dumpster fire.  

In August, the Washington Post witnessed a Turning Point training, which focused on how to find MAGA-friendly, low-propensity voters. The strategy seemed half-baked and thoroughly creepy: 

[The trainer] instructed the organizers not to come on too strong by showing up with MAGA hats and fliers. Instead, they should research their marks and start reaching out through Facebook groups, community events, or neighborly gestures such as recommending plumbers or harp teachers. They could even arrange seemingly chance encounters on coffee runs or dog walks.  

“Some of these things sound like stalking,” one staffer whispered.  

“Professional stalkers,” his colleague joked back.  

As one slide from the training implored: “BE NORMAL. BE NORMAL. BE NORMAL.” 

By September, Republican Party officials in swing states began publicly fretting about the lack of traditional canvassing activity. I flagged some of those reports in the Monthly’s September 17 newsletter. But more kept coming. 

On September 23, the Associated Press reported: 

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…. 

“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.”.. [I]n interviews with more than two dozen activists and party officials across the seven battleground states, such reports [of canvasser sightings] were rare.”

The canvassing by America PAC was not necessarily efficiently targeted. The Washington Post reported on September 15 that “the mailers and door-hangers obtained by The Post were delivered to a longtime conservative operative in the state who was already committed to Trump and votes regularly in federal elections. ‘‘It’s a little screwy that I’m on their list,’’ said the individual…”

As reported in July and  September, America PAC was also hampered by hiring and firing vendors. 

In mid-October, The New York Times examined the Harris and Trump turnout machines in several battleground areas. In Pennsylvania’s closely divided Erie County, reporters found debilitating infighting among Republican insiders and outside activists. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, Democrats had out-door-knocked Republicans by more than 8-to-1. In Arizona, neither Turning Point, America PAC, nor the Trump campaign would share updated information on how many houses they had contacted.  

Both the Washington Post and The Guardian reported canvassers’ frustrations that the smartphone app used by America PAC frequently glitched and hampered their work. 

Also in October, leaks from inside Trump’s GOTV effort claimed that much of the data uploaded by America PAC’s foot soldiers was fraudulent, with the canvassers seeking to get paid without doing the work. Reuters initially broke the news, though The Guardian has had multiple subsequent reports, including evidence that the smartphone used by canvassers about a quarter of the reported door knocks were flagged as potentially faked. The Guardian also uncovered a video showing America PAC canvassers how to fake their logs. Last Friday, the Guardian reported that Musk’s political advisor was warned about the fake data problem in late September, but the “unusual activity logs” continued to appear. On Friday, NBC News covered the fake data controversy, quoting “an operative close to the effort” who said “hell has broken loose” inside America PAC in response to the leaks.  

A more disturbing scandal was unearthed last Wednesday by Wired: 

In Michigan, canvassers and paid door knockers for the former president, contracted by a firm associated with America PAC, have been subjected to poor working conditions: A number of them have been driven around in the back of a seatless U-Haul van, according to video obtained by WIRED, and threatened that their lodging at a local motel wouldn’t be paid for if they didn’t meet canvassing quotas. One door knocker alleges that they didn’t even know they were signing up for anything having to do with Musk or Trump. 

Then, on Sunday, Wired covered the appalling fallout. Tyra Muldrow, a 20-year-old America PAC canvasser, and her colleagues “were fired with little explanation beyond a complaint that someone had spoken with the press. Many, including her, were still owed money. Muldrow had to find her own way home; others are still stranded in Michigan.”

Why would Trump gamble the election on these untested rogues? In June, I surmised that a strategy based on juicing the base and ignoring the swing appealed to his innate narcissism because the latter would require rhetorical modulation or message discipline. Doing things the old-fashioned RNC way—with door-knocking efficiently concentrated in more densely populated areas where more swing voters live—meant behaving like a responsible adult. Following Kirk’s strategy of digging up stray MAGA voters in far-flung places allowed Trump to indulge in his darkest impulses. 

We can’t say yet who will win. But, almost surely, if Trump wins, it will be despite his GOTV team, not because of it.  

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