Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses party organizations and campaign finance.
Donald Trump's obsession with "election integrity" has led his team to build a network of more than 150,000 poll watchers and poll workers, while relying mostly on outside groups to connect with voters on the ground.
Why it matters: Some Republicans worry that Trump's focus on preventing a "rigged" election has hurt the party's ground game, the get-out-the-vote operations that can be crucial in an election as close as this one.Trump's "election integrity" team also has raised concerns among Democrats about potential voter intimidation at the polls. If Trump loses on Nov. 5, the election teams would be his evidence collectors for what almost certainly would be a barrage of legal challenges — and calls for state officials not to certify the election results.
The Republican campaign for president is quietly being remade by new federal guidelines that empower big-money groups and threaten to undermine party control well beyond the 2024 election.
Former President Donald J. Trump’s team has enlisted some of these groups to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to knock on hundreds of thousands of doors across the country — saving the campaign significant money in the process.
But the Trump campaign is making a serious gamble in doing so, betting that these outside groups, which they do not directly control, can carry out their marching orders without accountability.
This transformation is a consequence of a surprise decision by the Federal Election Commission earlier this year that allows campaigns to coordinate their canvassing efforts with outside groups like super PACs. The change means that campaigns can outsource much of their costly ground game to entities that can take unlimited donations and raise money at a much faster clip.
