Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

What We're Watching

Trump’s ground-game gamble

A Trump Vance campaign sign sits at the Cobb County Republican Party's booth at the Pigs and Peaches Country Festival in Kennesaw, Georgia, on Aug. 17, 2024.

A Trump Vance campaign sign sits at the Cobb County Republican Party's booth at the Pigs and Peaches Country Festival in Kennesaw, Georgia, on Aug. 17, 2024.

REUTERS/Megan Varner
Less than six weeks before Election Day, Donald Trump is gambling on an unconventional (and untested) strategy to target potential voters. The polling margins in the states expected to decide the election’s outcome – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada – are exceptionally tight. That’s why the get-out-the-vote operations supporting the Trump and Kamala Harris campaigns are even more critical than usual.

Both sides know they must motivate as many supporters, and potential supporters, as possible to cast a ballot. Harris is taking a more conventional approach to the “ground game” by relying on the resources of the Democratic National Committee and on hundreds of thousands of volunteers to knock on doors in key states and to register more voters likely to support her.

Trump has a different strategy. Rather than relying on the Republican National Committee and volunteers as past GOP presidential candidates have done, the Trump campaign is reportedly outsourcing these operations to outside groups, including one backed by Elon Musk, to target mainly undecided voters. These groups pay workers to do the groundwork once done mainly by volunteers.

If this strategy works, it may change future campaigns for both parties. If it doesn’t, Trump’s gamble will likely be remembered as a bad idea that helped cost him the election.

More For You

​U.S. President Donald Trump speaks next to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during the signing ceremony for an executive order on mail ballots, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., March 31, 2026.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks next to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during the signing ceremony for an executive order on mail ballots, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., March 31, 2026.

REUTERS/Evan Vucci
Trump takes Iran war to prime-timeWhat are Donald Trump’s aims in Iran? He’s sent conflicting signals in recent days — is he ending the war soon or launching a ground invasion? Is he forcing open the Strait of Hormuz or forgetting about it? Has the Iranian regime changed, or not? This evening may bring some clarity when he addresses the nation at [...]
​U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office, as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum look on, on the day he signs an executive order, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 23, 2025.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office, as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum look on, on the day he signs an executive order, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 23, 2025.

REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
Trump’s Strait talk gets wavyThe US president has now suggested several times that the Iran war could end without reopening the Strait of Hormuz. On Tuesday morning, he blasted European allies for not sending forces to protect navigation through the Iran-dominated waterway, which handles a fifth of the world’s oil and gas. “Go get your own oil!” [...]
US President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One en route to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, USA, on March 29, 2026.

US President Donald Trump talks to members of the media aboard Air Force One en route to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, USA, on March 29, 2026.

REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Donald Trump threatens to “take the oil” in IranThe US president made the comments to the Financial Times on Sunday, just as hundreds of US Special Operations troops arrived in the Middle East ahead of a possible mission to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub. (As it happens, Trump has been thinking of doing this for nearly 40 years.) [...]
​Russia's President Vladimir Putin and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend the India-Russia Business Forum in New Delhi, India, December 5, 2025.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend the India-Russia Business Forum in New Delhi, India, December 5, 2025.

Sputnik/Grigory Sysoyev/Pool via REUTERS
India rekindles old friendship to fill energy shortageTo fill the massive energy void from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Delhi has turned once again to an old friend: Moscow. Soon after the Iran war began, the US temporarily allowed India to buy more Russian crude, after spending the preceding six months urging them to stop. The two [...]