GOP Operatives Reveal How Key States Feel About Trump 2020
President Trump’s re-election campaign has yet to place staff in key states, with some Republicans anxious that the plodding pace of hiring for 2020 could squander the advantages of incumbency.
Republican operatives in a half-dozen states critical to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence winning a second term say they have seen few signs of life from the re-election campaign. With the eventual Democratic nominee sure to be mired in a competitive and possibly lengthy primary, some GOP insiders fret that Trump-Pence could miss an opportunity to enter the general election better organized and more prepared to compete.
“We just came through a tough general election here in Pennsylvania and there hasn’t been a lot of focus on 2020 yet. There’s clearly some concern,” said Charlie Gerow, a veteran Republican consultant in a state crucial to Trump’s fortunes. “It’s going to be difficult for President Trump to repeat here, but it’s clearly doable. To beat the odds, as he did in 2016, the campaign will have to have a strong ground game.” . . .
“In my thirty years of working in presidential campaigns, I have never seen a more unified, robust campaign operation than what we established in 2018, which has positioned us to deploy a winning team in 2019 and 2020,” Michael Glassner, CEO of the Trump-Pence campaign, said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner. “As impressive as our victory was in 2016, we are currently light years ahead in structure and operations today than we were then.”
Trump declared for re-election and started raising money for 2020 earlier than many predecessors. His campaign hired senior staff in the middle of the 2018 cycle and began charting a path to re-election. Despite growing concern at the grassroots, Republicans directly familiar with campaign planning say they aren’t unhappy with the rate of progress, dismissing the nail-biters as needlessly, and unreasonably, impatient. (Read more from “GOP Operatives Reveal How Key States Feel About Trump 2020” HERE)
Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.
