Playing it Safe? Donald Trump's Curious Ground Game

In modern presidential elections, superior grassroots voter outreach can mean the difference between winning and losing so-called battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, and, by extension, the White House. When the primaries wrapped up in early June, Republican Donald Trump was far behind his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton on that front, lacking anything close to the extensive staff and volunteer operations Clinton already had up and running in such states. And yet, for much of the summer, the Trump campaign continued to maintain bare-bones staff in Ohio, Iowa and other election bellwethers, even as it paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to political consultants and organizers in states where the election results are all but a foregone conclusion.

Despite limited resources and a lack of campaign infrastructure, the Trump campaign refused to narrow his focus, spending more in June and July for what it dubbed "field consulting" in places like Alabama, Massachusetts, New York and Oklahoma—where the partisan tilt is heavily one way or the other—than in genuinely competitive states. And several of the field consultants in those non-battleground states were still on the Trump payroll in August, some tell Newsweek, with plans to continue their get-out-the-vote efforts through November.

"We're going to have several campaign offices...spread across the state," says Jacob Daniels, a political consultant who is overseeing Trump's field operations in Oregon. The Trump campaign paid Daniels's firm, Endeavor Advocacy, a total of $6,500 in June and July. Overall, the campaign spent $462,000 on field consulting in July, according to campaign finance reports. That's nearly as much as Trump spent that month on payroll for his full-time staff. However, only just more than a third of the field consulting payments went to states that can even generously be considered battlegrounds, including Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin, even though Trump could use the help in those places.

Meanwhile, Trump in July paid more for field consulting in traditionally Democratic Washington than he did for similar consulting services in any battleground state. And just Tuesday evening, he attended a rally outside Seattle.

That reflects, in part, Trump's belief—which he repeated throughout the primary race—that he could redraw the political map this fall, winning over blue-collar Democrats and bringing out so many new voters that traditionally liberal states could swing his way. "We feel that although in the past recent cycles, Oregon has gone blue, we believe that Mr. Trump is the type of candidate who could put Oregon in the red column," explains Daniels. Trump campaign spokespeople did not reply to repeated requests to comment.

"Any good campaign will organize its volunteers and put them in the field, and we're no different," says veteran strategist Tim Clark, Trump's California state director. "We have a lot of volunteers, so we're organizing our volunteers and putting them in the field" to encourage Californians to vote for Trump. The Clinton campaign, Clark notes, is doing the same thing.

That's certainly true. In fact, Clinton has made an effort to staff campaign offices in all 50 states. But Trump is in a very different position, says Nathan Gonzalez, editor of the Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report, which analyzes election politics. "Those are the kinds of things that campaigns do that have more than enough money and more than enough campaign staff," says Gonzalez. Clinton does, he says, but Trump did not at the start of summer—and his campaign is still playing catch-up to Clinton's in most swing states. The Trump campaign is also leaning heavily on the Republican Party and its state affiliates to do much of the legwork, literally—things like door knocking, phone banks and other voter engagement.

Party leaders in competitive states are expressing confidence in those efforts. Trump on August 25 rounded out his Iowa staff, hiring a political director and four field directors. But Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann was bullish about GOP prospects there during a recent conference call. "This absolutely is the most cooperation that anyone has seen in the Republican Party between the national party, the Republican National Committee, the state party, the presidential campaign and, I would add to that, the other campaigns that are involved." And Kaufmann painted Trump's reliance on the party as a virtue. "They are depending on the state parties and the people on the ground. They're actually seeking advice from us," he said, noting that locals have the most expertise on the political landscape in their state.

Regardless, the PBS Newshour reported this week that Clinton has hundreds more campaign offices up and running in swing states than Trump. And many strategists believe Trump's campaign needs to focus solely on the handful of states that are likely to decide the election. "Conventional wisdom is we're not going to be able to win" states like Oregon and Washington, says one Ohio-based GOP strategist, who spoke on background in order to talk candidly about strategy. The Buckeye State, on the other hand, is a must-win, the strategist says. Yet Trump was still filling out his senior staff roster there at the beginning of August.

The strategist says he lobbied Trump and his previous campaign manager, Paul Manafort, this summer to focus resources where they're needed most. "Actually, Mr. Trump agreed with me," the strategist says. It was Manafort who was "one of the big holdouts," maintaining that Trump could beat Clinton even if he lost Ohio or Pennsylvania.

With Manafort ousted in mid-August, the Ohio strategist is hoping the new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, will refocus operations. "I'm guessing that Kellyanne probably understands that [Ohio] is a battleground state that we have to win and we've got to put all the resources we can into it," he says.

Daniels is philosophical about Trump shifting away from what has been expansive state outreach. "Campaigns are meant to be flexible," Trump's Oregon consultant says. "If things change down the line...we'll certainly start investing our efforts elsewhere." But he also warns against relying on conventional wisdom this election, saying, "2016 is breaking all the rules."