Steve Contorno and Fredreka Schouten, CNN:
Targeting irregular voters, teaching supporters to surveil polling places and bombarding states with voting-related lawsuits – this is the machine the Trump campaign has built for an election that many expect to hinge on just tens of thousands of ballots cast across seven battleground states. It’s a gamble, Trump’s campaign internally acknowledges, but one that they insist is built on data they have collected over nearly a decade and tested for the past six months.
That, and tens of millions of dollars injected lately by a super PAC aligned with tech billionaire Elon Musk, one of Trump’s most vocal and influential supporters.
The campaign’s untraditional strategy was on display when conservative commentator Tucker Carlson came to Grand Rapids last month. He urged his audience to download an app – 10xVotes – that promises to help them find the non-voting conservatives among their family and friends. Days later, the Michigan state party chairman also plugged 10xVotes when he rolled into Traverse City, Michigan, alongside Trump running mate JD Vance.
Elsewhere in the state, the Trump campaign is holding “election integrity” training, teaching conservatives to be poll watchers, including in areas where Republicans normally win by wide margins. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign and Republican Party are suing the state of Michigan to keep local Veteran Affairs offices and other federal outposts from offering voter registration.
The approach marks a stark contrast to how Trump won the Grand Rapids metro area and other battlegrounds eight years ago, when voter outreach efforts were coordinated by the Republican Party and organized out of regional field offices. And it’s one that has attracted plenty of detractors among GOP strategists, who say they see little evidence of the sophisticated political apparatus the Trump campaign claims is in motion. They worry too much emphasis has been placed on people who are disengaged from politics and on appeasing Trump’s fixation with relitigating the 2020 election.
“It’s political malpractice,” said Dennis Lennox, a veteran Republican operative in Michigan. “It’s a Hail Mary.”
