{"id":12992,"date":"2016-10-04T10:16:08","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T10:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=12992"},"modified":"2016-10-04T10:19:38","modified_gmt":"2016-10-04T10:19:38","slug":"trump-risky-early-voting-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/elections\/trump-risky-early-voting-strategy.html","title":{"rendered":"Trump risky early voting strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump risky early voting strategy<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Just a few weeks into early voting, it\u2019s too soon to know which presidential campaign is winning the war for ballots cast in advance of Election Day. But one thing is obvious: For better or for worse, in the critical phase of the campaign where roughly a third of the vote was cast in 2012, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are following the same playbooks that got them this far.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s haphazard campaign, ignoring standard practice, relies largely on mining his boisterous, battleground state rallies to amass his early-vote totals. Clinton\u2019s effort is more methodical and traditional, hinging on an extensive field organization to drive its advance voting strategy. As Trump allies see it, it\u2019s a test of the real estate mogul\u2019s magnetism versus Clinton\u2019s technical mastery.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Iowa, clipboard-toting, neon-clad Trump volunteers canvass the extended lines that often form hours ahead of his events. They offer priority seating to prospective voters who fill out absentee ballot requests. At a recent North Carolina rally, there was a reserved \u201cmail-in voter seating section.\u201d Trump allies in both states emphasize that the rally-centric efforts are augmented with traditional approaches as well. But there\u2019s no question that the GOP nominee\u2019s campaign is counting on the rallies \u2014 which it insists are filled with first-time voters \u2014 to serve as the fulcrum of its early voting strategy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had people enter that arena who weren\u2019t completely on board or on the fence or just wanted to come there to see the show,\u201d said Stuart Jolly, who ran Trump\u2019s field program during the Republican primary. \u201cWhen you see so many people rallying and listening to him personally, they leave ecstatic. They leave over the top and ready to do whatever they can do for him. It\u2019s a cult of personality and the more you get the personality out, the better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Supporters view the rally-based plan as a risky but plausible approach that proved successful in the GOP primaries. But Jolly warned this approach has limitations too \u2014 Trump and running mate Mike Pence can only be in two places at once.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHis issue is that he can\u2019t be everywhere,\u201d Jolly said. \u201cShe can make 50 different commercials for 50 different states,\u201d Jolly said. \u201cHe\u2019s not going to have that ability being a two-man band show.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In Iowa, where absentee votes began trickling in late last month and in-person voting began last week, Republicans are crowing about a sharp drop in the number of absentee ballot requests by Democrats \u2014 from 155,000 on Oct. 3, 2012 to about 89,000 this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Republicans don\u2019t expect to win the early vote, which has leaned toward Democrats in nearly every cycle since 2002, but they\u2019re hoping to limit the damage so a strong GOP turnout on Election Day can make up the difference. So far, they contend, it\u2019s working.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe gap is so significant at this point, any effort by the Clinton campaign five weeks out feels like they\u2019re just trying to not get embarrassed here,\u201d said Tim Albrecht, a Republican consultant and former aide to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, whose son Eric is chairing the Trump campaign\u2019s efforts in the state.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Clinton campaign argues the drop in absentee requests is by design \u2014 they\u2019ve started their absentee request program later, in order to capture more reliable voters. Clinton herself led a push in Iowa\u2019s Polk County last week on the first day of in-person early voting. And Chelsea Clinton will head to the state Wednesday for events in Dubuque and Sioux City, where she intends to \u201curge Iowans to vote early.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Prominent Iowa Democrats there noted that the drop in ballot requests isn\u2019t a Democratic phenomenon \u2014 rather, it extends to Republicans and independents, including in the state\u2019s heavily Republican 4th Congressional District, which encompasses the state\u2019s northwestern region. There, just 35,000 requests had come in as of Friday, compared to more than 43,000 in each of the state\u2019s three more Democratic-leaning districts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Veteran Iowa Democratic strategist Jeff Link added that the Trump campaign sign-up effort seems to be simply displacing Election Day voters, since rally-goers are typically hardcore supporters likely to vote anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pro-Trump Iowa operatives are convinced otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the Trump folks that we\u2019re getting to these rallies \u2014 I talked to a woman today, she is 99 years old. She hasn\u2019t voted since Roosevelt,\u201d said Eric Branstad. \u201cShe is above and beyond in her passion for Mr. Trump. A lot of these voters coming to the rallies are the ones who haven\u2019t voted since Reagan in the 80s. That is a completely new crop, and another reason we\u2019re going to be successful this year.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s far less guesswork when it comes to Clinton\u2019s efforts. The campaign, which relies on data gleaned from voter rolls, is attempting to harness its marked infrastructure advantage to not only encourage people to request ballots but to follow up by knocking on doors to make sure they actually submit them. Her allies describe a sophisticated \u201cchase program\u201d to ensure voters who receive absentee ballots follow through.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a handful of states where ballots are being cast, the campaign is also dispatching high-profile surrogates to deliver the early voting call. In addition to Hillary Clinton herself, who appeared in North Carolina after the last presidential debate and stressed the need to vote early, Sen. Bernie Sanders visited Iowa last Wednesday, and Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards is expected to visit as well, delivering a twist on the campaign\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m With Her\u201d mantra: \u201cBe with her first.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

First Lady Michelle Obama will travel to North Carolina on Tuesday with a similar pitch. and surrogates ranging from Chelsea Clinton to actor Jeffrey Wright have taken the message across the state. Wright recently dropped into a barber shop frequented by African American customers to push early voting. (Next Monday, Chelsea Clinton will be in Wisconsin, which has opened absentee voting in most major metropolitan regions, to draw out voters.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Clinton campaign officials said their efforts dovetailed with a widely perceived Clinton victory in last week\u2019s debate, and hoped to channel that into messages about the importance of the early vote. They’re also pleased that early voting is beginning in earnest as Trump’s campaign has been mired in a string of controversies \u2014 from knocking the weight of a former Miss Universe to the leak of a portion of his tax returns to New York authorities’ decision to halt the Trump Foundation’s solicitations.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a year when both presidential candidates have high unfavorable ratings, Democrats say their ground game is helping them close the gap in key swing states, after several weeks in which Trump surged.<\/span><\/p>\n

The limits of Trump\u2019s event-centered early-vote efforts are apparent In North Carolina, where Clinton has clung to a narrow edge in polls. While Republicans are now ahead in the total number of absentee ballots requested in North Carolina, close observers of the early-vote fight say the party\u2019s requests there are down from where they were at this point in 2012\u2014and Democratic requests are up, even though Democrats tend to do better with in-person early voting and Republicans tend to do better in early vote by mail in the state.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would have expected by now that more Republicans would have returned ballots than Democrats,\u201d said Michael McDonald, an elections expert at the University of Florida who has been carefully tracking the early vote through his initiative, the United States Election Project. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing in the data so far is, on the requests, Republicans have finally taken a lead, but on returned [ballots] Democrats still have a lead. Eventually those requests translate into ballots and Republicans will take a lead, but the lead is not as large as in 2012. We can see Democratic interest in voting by mail is up in North Carolina, and Republican interest is down compared to 2012.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

McDonald found that, through Sunday, Republicans were about 15,000 absentee ballot requests behind where they were at this point in 2012, while Democrats were up by around 5,000 ballots.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a small sample size, he noted, a fraction of the number of ballots that were cast in 2012, or that are expected to land this cycle. But North Carolina Democrats have been buoyed by legal victories that rolled back restrictions on voting and early voting pushed by the GOP-controlled legislature.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the GOP side, more than a few North Carolina Republicans worry that the focus on rally-based efforts rather than a grassroots push for early votes could be short-sighted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t hear a damn thing from them,\u201d said a veteran Republican operative in the state, who went on to add that beyond state and Republican National Committee efforts to get out the vote, \u201ceverything is built around events for him or Governor Pence.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The North Carolina GOP, in conjunction with the Trump campaign and the RNC, is taking the lead on early-vote efforts, said Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director. He waved off questions about whether Republicans were underperforming in the initial cut of the early mail vote, saying that the pool of voters was \u201c<\/span>miniscule,\u201d and that Republicans have made big gains in voter registration.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a massive operation to get out the early vote: events, mail, calls, door knocks,\u201d he said. Asked about the kinds of events underway, he said, \u201cWe\u2019ll just likely hold some events around the start of in-person early voting at poll sites.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In Florida and Wisconsin, two other swing states where early voting has begun, the picture remains unclear. In Florida, the vote-by-mail process has changed since 2012, making it more difficult to make apples-to-apples comparisons at this early point. In-person early voting opportunities have been expanded in some of the bigger counties \u2014 starting later in the month \u2014 a dynamic that could benefit Clinton by expanding chances to vote in more urban, Democratic-friendly areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Wisconsin, early voting has begun in Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay and some smaller communities around the state, but the lack of party registration makes it hard to detect voting patterns. Still, Democrats are bullish thanks to a federal court ruling that removed restrictions on the location of early in-person voting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Marian Krumberger, chair of Wisconsin\u2019s Brown County GOP \u2014 which includes Green Bay \u2014 said the infrastructure built during Gov. Scott Walker\u2019s 2012 recall election and 2014 reelection campaigns will help offset the traditional Democratic advantage in early voting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Krumberger said Trump\u2019s rallies have helped generate energy among prospective voters. \u201cWe have people walking in our office every day,\u201d she said. Asked how the party finds potential voters, she added, \u201cThey find us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2016\/10\/donald-trump-early-voting-229081<\/span><\/p>\n

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