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Trump Slow to Invest in Swing States   03/27 06:07

   

   NEW YORK (AP) -- In his bid to retake the White House, few states hold as 
much promise for Donald Trump as Michigan.

   The former president has already won the state once and President Joe Biden, 
who reclaimed it for Democrats in 2020, is confronting vulnerabilities there as 
he seeks reelection. Trump's campaign promises an aggressive play for Michigan 
as part of a robust swing-state strategy.

   But, at least for now, those promises appear to be mostly talk. The Trump 
campaign and its partners at the Republican National Committee haven't yet made 
significant general election investments in the state, according to Michigan 
Republican Party Chairman Pete Hoekstra. The national committee, he said, 
hasn't transferred any money to the state party to help bolster its operations 
heading into the general election. There are no specific programs in place to 
court voters of color. And there's no general election field staff in place.

   "We've got the skeleton right now," Hoekstra said. "We're going to have to 
put more meat on it."

   It's much the same in presidential battleground states across the country, 
according to Republican operatives and party officials involved in campaign 
planning elsewhere.

   Widely praised for its professionalism and effectiveness throughout the 
primary phase of the 2024 election, Trump's political operation has been slow 
to pivot toward the general election in the weeks after executing a hostile 
takeover of the Republican Party's national political machinery. In fact, the 
former president's team has rolled back plans under previous leaders to add 
hundreds of staff and dozens of new minority-outreach centers in key states 
without offering a clear alternative.

   Indeed, just six months before the first early votes are cast in the general 
election between Trump and Biden, Trump's Republican Party has little general 
election infrastructure to speak of.

   Officials on the ground in top swing states are not panicking, but the 
disparity with the Biden campaign is stark.

   This month alone, Biden opened 100 new offices and added more than 350 new 
staffers in swing states from Arizona to Georgia to Pennsylvania, according to 
campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa. That's in addition to the Democratic 
president's existing battleground-state staff of 100 that was already in place.

   Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita, who is now also running 
operations at the RNC, declined to detail any of the Republican campaign's 
plans.

   "By combining forces, the Trump campaign and the RNC are deploying 
operations fueled by passionate volunteers who care about saving America and 
firing Joe Biden," he said. "We do not feel obligated, however, to discuss the 
specifics of our strategy, timing, or tactics with members of the news media."

   Trump may be discussing strategy with some state Republican officials behind 
closed doors.

   Hoekstra was among a handful of Michigan Republican leaders who trekked to 
Florida last week to meet privately with Trump and members of his senior 
campaign team about plans for the general election. The conversation, Hoekstra 
said, left him optimistic about the former president's commitment to his state.

   "I feel good about where we are," he said. "The Trump team is engaged."

   Earlier this month, Trump replaced Republican National Committee Chair Ronna 
McDaniel with his new hand-picked leadership team, including daughter-in-law 
Lara Trump, who is now RNC co-chair. LaCivita, who took over as the committee's 
chief of staff, promised sweeping changes in the GOP's political infrastructure 
across the country.

   In the days since, more than 60 Republican staffers across the country were 
issued layoff notices. They included virtually all the people who staffed the 
RNC's minority outreach community centers and others inside the committee's 
department of State Parties Strategies.

   "There was never a fully cohesive bond between the Trump campaign and the 
RNC in the past, and we are now operating as one entity," Lara Trump said 
Tuesday on David Webb's SiriusXM Patriot channel program. "We have cut a lot of 
fat."

   Facing internal pushback on some of the cuts, Lara Trump has vowed that the 
committee's half-dozen existing community centers would remain open. But it's 
unclear whether Trump's team will follow through on McDaniel's plans to open an 
additional 40 community centers in the coming months.

   The centers were seen as a critical resource in boosting the Republican 
Party's relationships with minority groups who have traditionally voted 
Democratic, but may be open to the GOP's populist message. Advocates suggest 
that such investments have made a significant impact in recent years, 
especially in competitive House districts where several thousand votes can make 
a difference.

   "It seems that there's a consensus that community centers are vital for the 
Republican Party in general," said Shawn Steel, a RNC member from California 
who credits a community center in Orange County's Little Saigon with helping 
his wife, Rep. Michelle Steele, R-Calif., win her seat.

   Democrats, Steel said, have been effectively engaging in minority 
communities since New York City's Tammany Hall more than two centuries ago. 
"We're trying to catch up," Steel said. "I'm optimistic."

   Amid such optimism, however, there is also a deep sense of uncertainty as 
Trump's team rewrites the party's 2024 battleground-state strategy after 
burning the previous playbook.

   Trump's lieutenants have already postponed plans in place before McDaniel's 
ouster that would have begun adding hundreds of Republican staffers in 
presidential battleground states beginning this month, according to people with 
direct knowledge of the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to 
disclose private conversations.

   It's unclear if or when the field staff will eventually be in place. 
Recently laid-off staffers have recently begun interviewing for new positions, 
although some have been told they must relocate to Florida or new states.

   Georgia GOP Chair Joshua McKoon said he has had several meetings with RNC 
leadership about "the deployment of additional resources" to his state, 
although there is no set timeline.

   "What wins elections is having the staff necessary to carry out your 
get-out-the-vote plan, so that's what I'm most interested in," McKoon said. "I 
certainly expect to have further discussions in the very near future about the 
timeline and having some more specifics."

   He added, "I feel like we're going to have what we need."

   Aware of a building sense of urgency, newly elected RNC Chair Michael 
Whatley issued a memo to party officials over the weekend promising that the 
committee is "building on our existing programs and expanding our outreach at 
the RNC."

   He vowed to "re-engage America's working voters," continue to engage rural 
voters, and grow Trump's support "with demographics who have not traditionally 
voted for our candidates..."

   Whatley did not offer any specifics, however, aside from mentioning a new 
battleground-state program that would direct officials within the committee's 
State Parties Strategies department to work with "auxiliary Republican groups 
and other grassroots organizations" in addition to state parties.

   Trump's team did not clarify, when asked, which grassroots organizations 
Whatley meant, although the chairman before his recent election had 
aggressively courted leaders at Turning Point USA, a leading group in Trump's 
"Make America Great Again" movement that had been a driving force in McDaniel's 
ouster.

   On Tuesday, Lara Trump wrote "Awesome!" in sharing a social media post from 
Turning Point founder and CEO Charlie Kirk that highlighted the group's efforts 
to organize "full-time ballot chasers" in Arizona and other states.

   Meanwhile, Biden's campaign earlier in the month launched a $30 million 
six-week advertising blitz targeting swing-state voters with a particular focus 
on Black and Hispanic-owned outlets and "culture and sports programming such as 
Comedy Central and ESPN."

   Biden is also hitting the campaign trail with more intensity.

   He has campaigned in Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and 
Michigan in recent days. He was in North Carolina on Tuesday, signaling the 
president's ambition in a state that Trump narrowly won in 2020.

   Trump, by contrast, has been hardly seen in public this month aside from his 
court appearances.

   Moussa, Biden's spokesman, slapped Trump for embracing a general election 
strategy focused on "apparently hiding at his country club."

   "Meanwhile, the RNC fires staffers, shutters community centers and shuts 
down their minority outreach programs. Not exactly how to win the hearts and 
minds of the American people -- or get to 270 electoral votes," Moussa said.

 
 
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