Data suggests canvassers linked to Elon Musk’s America Pac falsely claimed to have visited homes of potential voters
Donald Trump’s campaign may be failing to reach thousands of voters they hope to turn out in Arizona and Nevada, with roughly a quarter of door-knocks done by America Pac flagged by its canvassing app as potentially fraudulent, according to leaked data and people familiar with the matter.
The potentially fake door-knocks – when canvassers falsely claim they visited a home – could present a serious setback to Trump as he and Kamala Harris remain even in the polls with fewer than 20 days to an election that increasingly appears set to be determined by turnout.
The Trump campaign earlier this year outsourced the bulk of its ground game to America Pac, the political action committee founded by Musk, betting that spending millions to turn out Trump supporters, especially those who don’t typically vote, would boost returns.
But leaked America Pac data obtained by the Guardian shows that roughly 24% of the door-knocks in Arizona and 25% of the door-knocks in Nevada this week were flagged under “unusual survey logs” by the Campaign Sidekick canvassing app.
Actually, you probably could get a fair amount of traction by going to those houses and just saying shit like “they thought they could beat Trump on January 6th but once he’s back in office, he’s promised to pardon the J6 patriots and send the justice department and military out to get even with the traitors that tried to take him down.” Just remind people of the worst shit Trump has said and done in a way that doesn’t associate you with the Democrats.
You could even have a bad response ready for each issue, like how “he’s going to fix inflation with tariffs, because it was those other countries disrupting supplies that made inflation, so we’ll tax the stuff they bring in to teach them a lesson.” Anyone who agrees with you was probably a lost cause, but there will also be quite a few who find your pitch deeply unappealing. And best of all, you could use real Trump quotes to make the whole thing legit.
You’d probably get fired if anyone finds out, since I assume there’s a script and/or talking points you’re supposed to follow. But they clearly aren’t keeping close tabs on the actual work being done, just locations, so who knows.
Yeah, you might be able to pull that off, but you’d have to really deftly manage to be both unsettling enough to make less extreme Republicans exasperated with Trump while not being so obviously bad at outreach that someone calls the campaign to complain. Though the truth is so out there there’s a lot of room for just being “passionately offputting” where a short-staffed operation might just assume you need a reminder about the script.
As someone who grew up in Christian-Nationalist churches and circles, just dress like a Jehovah’s Witness or like a young Ben Shapiro. Even if someone does call to complain, they will describe 70% of the people there and they’ll probably address it as a gentle reminder to all the canvassers in a meeting rather than one on one. At which point someone more right-wing will stand up for everything because they actually believe every one of the policies are good things, and everyone will think they were the problem, not you.