Data suggests canvassers linked to Elon Musk’s America Pac falsely claimed to have visited homes of potential voters
Hugo Lowell at The Guardian:
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 to have visited a home – could present a serious setback for Trump as he and Kamala Harris remain even in the polls with fewer than 20 days until an election.
The Trump campaign earlier this year outsourced the bulk of its ground game to America Pac, the political action committee founded by Elon 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. The Arizona data, for example, shows that out of 35,692 doors hit by 442 canvassers working for Blitz Canvassing in the America Pac operation on Wednesday, 8,511 doors were flagged under the unusual survey logs.
The extent of the flagged doors in America Pac’s operation underscores the risk of outsourcing a ground-game program, where paid canvassers are typically not as invested in their candidate’s victory compared with volunteers or campaign staff. America Pac denied it was experiencing that level of actual fraud in Arizona and Nevada and declined to comment on reporting for this story. “Sidekick was never expected to handle the auditing of America Pac’s door operation. The reason the Pac is confident in its numbers is because of the auditing procedures each canvassing firm puts in place and the auditing procedures of the Pac writ large,” a person familiar with the America Pac operation said. The Trump campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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Suspicious doors
The Trump campaign took a gamble this cycle when it outsourced the bulk of its ground game to political action committees, after the Federal Election Commission earlier this year for the first time allowed campaigns to coordinate its voter turnout efforts with outside groups. The campaign initially envisaged multiple pacs helping to drive the Trump vote, but America Pac ultimately became the largest and most ambitious of the outside groups as it poured more than $29.8m into its field operation for Trump and became the only Pac with a material presence in every battleground state.
The largest of the other Pacs involved with doing field work, such as Turning Point Action and America First Works, have a smaller footprint. Turning Point’s team in Wisconsin has also since been subsumed into America Pac’s operation, two people familiar with the matter said. As a result of its heavy investment, America Pac has been able to post impressive numbers of door-knocks in only a matter of months through its network of several vendors and dozens of subcontractors under those vendors in each of the battleground states. But in the final stretch toward the election, as the total door-knocks have increased, so too have suspected fakes, according to the leaked data. On 15 October, 20.1% of doors in Arizona were flagged under the unusual activity logs. On 16 October, it rose to 23.8% and on 17 October, it hit 26.9%.
The Guardian reports that Elon Musk’s pro-Trump America PAC that serves as one part of Donald Trump’s ground game could be flagged as potentially fraudulent.