Elon Musk has vowed to help Donald Trump secure a second presidency. Not only has he turned the platform formerly known as Twitter into a 24/7 MAGA propaganda apparatus, but he’s also committed huge amounts of cash to a political action group that is now serving as Trump’s primary canvassing machine. America PAC, which was created by Musk and continues to be funded by him, is said to be leading Trump’s door-knocking operations in key battleground states. Yet while Trump has effectively handed Musk the reins of his campaign, criticism is growing about how Musk’s group is handling that responsibility.
This year, the Trump campaign made the somewhat unusual decision to outsource a majority of its canvassing operations to outside political action groups. Historically speaking, most campaigns run their ground games in-house, using campaign staffers to comb the nation’s neighborhoods in search of would-be voters. Trump’s team, by contrast, decided to trust outside groups, such as Musk’s America PAC, and Turning Point Action, which is run by the rather unhinged right-wing personality and influencer Charlie Kirk.
Trump’s team also claims to be operating a kind of volunteer army of canvassers, which it calls the “Trump 47 Captains.” These so-called captains get free Trump paraphernalia for recruiting voters. The Trump campaign has claimed that they have as many as 27,000 such volunteers.
Despite talk of a diverse and aggressive ground game, The Guardian reports that Trump’s canvassing operations are now “principally being run by” Musk’s America PAC, which the outlet notes is the only group that has “a material presence of 300 to 400 employees in each of the seven battleground states.” Problematically, America PAC has been having issues lately. The group just recently fired the vendor it had contracted to conduct voter turnout in the key states of Nevada and Arizona. That contractor, the September Group, has been replaced by another company, Blitz Canvassing LLC. While that company is now operational, such late stage changes have worried GOP officials, as have the circulating claims that, whatever America PAC and other outside groups are trying to do, they don’t seem to be making much of an imprint.
Indeed, conservative operatives have begun to worry that Trump’s ground game is currently underperforming. “I’m very worried about the get-out-the-vote effort on the Republican side,” one pro-Trump GOP strategist recently told The Hill. “The legal challenge part of it, Republicans have been light-years better than 2020. Where I think I’m a little bit worried is the get-out-the-vote. They’re trying it a different way, sort of outsourcing it to different groups.”
Other Republican activists have claimed they just don’t see much evidence that canvassing is actually happening. “I’m as plugged in as they get—and yet I don’t even know who my friends and family back home can contact for a yard sign or to knock doors in their precinct,” a Republican operative residing in a swing state told Semafor.
Another GOP operative, who also lives in an unidentified swing state, told the outlet that they had seen “no ground activity at all” and that the Trump campaign seemed more focused on recruiting poll watchers than compelling voters to appear at said polls. “They’re really only focused on recruiting folks to volunteer to be poll watchers,” the strategist said. “I mean, they do a lot of that shit. But what’s the point of watching the vote if you haven’t turned out the vote?”
Trump’s team has shot back against criticisms of its canvassing efforts. “Team Trump has hundreds of staff and offices mobilizing hundreds of thousands of volunteers across the country,” a campaign operative recently told The Guardian. “That’s why everyone wants to take credit for our groundbreaking, data-enhanced, people-powered operation,” they added.
Musk has made it very clear that not only is he a Trump ride-or-die, but he envisions a future for himself in the federal government (that he also seems to hate). Musk recently pitched the idea for a “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE, get it?) task force that he says he would like to head, should Trump win the White House (Trump has publicly agreed this is a good idea and offered Musk the hypothetical job).
Once a sort of celebrity in green and leftist circles, Musk’s popularity has taken a dive-bomb with Democrats in recent years. A recent poll revealed only six percent of Democrats have positive feelings about him. Republicans, meanwhile, like him more than ever.
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