Trump Team Throws Out GOP Plan and Builds a Leaner 2024 Operation

Donald Trumps 2020 campaign called itself a juggernaut in May of that year, on par with a planet-destroying Death Star that was firing on all cylinders.

Trumps 2024 campaign has traded Star Wars metaphors for talk of a leaner and more efficient operation, with less real estate, fewer employees and greater dependence on outside groups.

Were focused on quality over quantity. I mean, how novel a concept, top strategist Chris LaCivita told the crowd of top donors May 4 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., according to attendees.

The shift comes as President Bidens campaign and its allies, buoyed by incumbency, have been moving in the opposite direction, building a more expansive operation sooner than in 2020. Strategists for both major parties expect Democrats to raise and spend more than Republicans over the coming months, a dynamic that has been magnified by the significant legal costs Trumps fundraising apparatus has absorbed to defend him in state and federal courts.

The situation has alarmed GOP officials in key states like Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, who have yet to receive promised funding, staff or even briefings on the new plans since the Trump team took control of the Republican National Committee in March. An earlier party blueprint for a general election build-out has been discarded, party officials say. Plans to open new offices have been scuttled. Hiring has been slowed.

In order to win close elections in Georgia, you have to have a ground game that emphasizes turning out early votes and absentee votes, said Cody Hall, a senior adviser to Gov. Brian Kemp (R). I have seen no evidence of them having any of that. The Trump campaign has a consultant in Georgia, but there is nothing else that I can see. Everyone is generally concerned.

The original RNC plan for the state of Georgia, reviewed by The Washington Post, called for hiring 12 regional field directors in April and 40 field organizers by the end of May, in addition to eventually opening 20 offices and a community center in the College Park, a mostly Black suburb of Atlanta. Arizona was slotted to receive six regional field directors, seven offices and 23 field organizers by the end of May. Party leaders had drafted similar road maps for other battleground states before Ronna McDaniel was replaced as chairwoman.

The RNCs plan at the start of this year was also focused on early voting, the plans show, though the Bank Your Vote website once the centerpiece of the effort has been offline for weeks as the party retools the program. It is full speed ahead, said James Blair, the national political director for both the Trump campaign and the RNC. Stay tuned for more on the program.

Arizona GOP chairwoman Gina Swoboda called RNC Chairman Michael Whatley on Monday to raise concerns that Arizona was not getting enough resources, according to three people familiar with the call, who like others for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

Top party officials reassured her that resources would be coming to the state. The AZGOP and the RNC are joined at the hip. Together, we are 110% focused on sending President Trump back to the White House and saving our country, Swoboda said in a statement Tuesday.

Others in the state remain concerned.

There is no sign of life, said Kim Owens, a Republican operative and public relations professionalin Arizona. Especially in a state that Trump lost so closely last time, youd expect to have more of a presence. I would think, Lets step it up. I think its a terrible mistake.

In Michigan, some of the states operatives and Republican lawmakers have grown concerned about a lack of an operation there, according to four people familiar with the matter, even as they feel generally bullish about the state. Pete Hoekstra, the chairman of the state party, declined to discuss staffing and hiring but praised Trumps team overall. We are light-years ahead of where we were in 2016, he said.

Trumps top advisers say concerns over their plans are unfounded and uninformed.

Its a different operation that is built by people who win races and have won races, LaCivita said in an interview. As it relates to 2020, they did things their way. Some worked. A lot didnt. But that was then, and this is now.

Since taking over the party in March, Trumps new team says it has reviewed the 2020 operation to identify waste and redundancies. Officials say they have decided not to hire separate political, communications and research operations at the campaign and the national party complaining that in 2020, the RNC and campaign clashed and said the RNC has improved the data operation to better target voters.

Trumps aides say they will build a more narrowly targeted volunteer field program using their successful effort in the Iowa caucuses as a template while taking advantage of a recent Federal Election Commission ruling that will allow them to directly coordinate message and script plans with outside groups who have paid canvassing such as door-knocking. The operation is being run by LaCivita, Blair and Alex Latcham, a former White House deputy political director for Trump.