Politics

Donald Trump is running his campaign into the ground

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Donald Trump is running his campaign into the ground

Presidential campaigns usually run their get-out-the-vote operations using campaign staff and volunteers. But in this election cycle, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign made a big and risky gamble: outsourcing the bulk of its ground game to America PAC, an outside group founded by tech titan Elon Musk. That move followed the Federal Election Commission’s decision to allow campaigns, for the first time, to work more closely with outside groups on GOTV operations.

That gamble appears to not be paying off. Reuters reports that, according to people involved in America PAC’s efforts, the group “is struggling in some swing states to meet door-knocking goals and is investigating claims that some canvassers lied about the number of voters they have contacted.” And The Guardian reports that, according to people familiar with the matter and leaked data, one-quarter of the door knocks the group claims it has executed in Arizona and Nevada are “potentially fraudulent.” The reports raise the possibility that the Trump campaign is many thousands of door knocks behind its goals for contacting voters. (According to The Guardian, the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment and “America Pac denied it was experiencing that level of actual fraud in Arizona and Nevada and declined to comment on reporting for this story.”)

Trump’s rally strategy is approaching the level of self-sabotage.

The Trump campaign appears to be incurring the costs of bucking common-sense strategies for voter turnout operations. Usually, a campaign would want to go the proven route of working with state parties and their regional field operations and avoid delegating critical work to networks of outside organizations.

Trump’s potential own goal on voter turnout is hardly an isolated misjudgment. In recent weeks the Trump’s campaign’s decision-making has appeared to be shockingly irrational and disorganized. With these missteps, Trump could be blowing his chances of winning the election. And if he were to win, then those missteps provide a preview of a Trump term that would be even more chaotic and incompetent than the first one.

One of Trump’s biggest head-scratchers in recent weeks has been a string of event and interview cancellations. Trump abruptly canceled a virtual town hall with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday, citing scheduling changes. Which wouldn’t be that strange except that it comes after a ton of last-second no-shows. My colleague Steve Benen rounded several of them up:

-Trump agreed to appear on CBS’s “60 Minutes” before canceling.

-He agreed to appear on CNBC before canceling.

-He reportedly planned to sit down for an interview with the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia before canceling.

-He was reportedly in conversations for weeks with The Shade Room about a sit-down interview before withdrawing.

-His campaign said he’d debate Kamala Harris more than once, but he soon after scrapped those plans, too.

It’s highly unusual for a presidential candidate to withdraw from so many media appearances, particularly in the final weeks of the election. At this moment, every hour matters. Ever the compulsive self-promoter, Trump would know that every interview is an opportunity to make news, make his closing arguments and stay top of mind for voters. Which makes the cancellations appear to be self-defeating.

Similarly, Trump’s rally strategy is approaching the level of self-sabotage. As I argued last week, the former president’s baffling decision to tour several blue states — some of them repeatedly — in the final weeks of the campaign could cost him major opportunities to persuade swing state voters to cast their ballots for him.

But when he was in a swing state last week, he swayed to music for 40 minutes in what was one of the strangest displays in modern presidential campaign history. As quirky as Trump has always been, he hasn’t ever so powerfully elicited questions of whether he’s in his right mind.

What explains Trump’s streak of increasingly bizarre behavior? Theories abound, from declining mental acuity to fatigue to overzealous attempts to telegraph confidence. I’d guess it’s a combination of all of those factors. What we do know is that the behavior that Trump and his team are exhibiting makes the prospect of another Trump term concerning for reasons other than his awful policy positions and plans. Unpredictability and irrationality are extremely dangerous in a president, especially when it comes to tasks such as managing foreign affairs.

Trump’s apparent exhaustion and inability to follow through with plans makes it possible that he would be more subdued and less effective in pursuing his nationalist and authoritarian agenda. Passing laws requires a lot of work and persuasion, and Trump may be less up to the task than he would’ve been otherwise. But for the most part, Trump’s growing inscrutability is worrying. A clear, rational mind is a nonnegotiable trait for overseeing diplomacy and warfare and managing nuclear risk. And if Trump is more prone to succumb to impulse and emotion, then his commitments to using executive authority to empower himself could grow even fiercer — and more disastrous for American democracy.

Zeeshan Aleem

Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for BLN Daily. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and Blue Light News, and he has also been published in, among other places, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Intercept. You can sign up for his free politics newsletter here.

Politics

Senate Republicans are getting smoked in fundraising

Published

34 minutes ago

October 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republican Senate candidates are hurting for cash.

Nearly every Democratic candidate in battleground Senate races outraised their GOP opponent from July through September. And in some cases, the disparities were stark.

In Texas, Democrat James Talarico trounced Republican Ken Paxton $60.2 million to $10.2 million in their main campaign accounts.
In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff raised $33.1 million to Rep. Mike Collins’ nearly $2.8 million.
In North Carolina, Democrat Roy Cooper raised $12.2 million to Michael Whatley’s $2.1 million.
In Michigan, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed hauled in roughly $33 million to former Rep. Mike Rogers’ nearly $10 million.
In Maine, Democrat Troy Jackson raised $20.5 million to GOP Sen. Susan Collins’ $5.2 million.
In Ohio, Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown hauled in $23.1 million to GOP Sen. Jon Husted’s $4.8 million.
In Iowa, Josh Turek raised $13.9 million to Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson’s nearly $3.3 million.
In Alaska, Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola raked in $17 million to GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan’s nearly $2.7 million.
In New Hampshire, Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas brought in $8.1 million to Republican former Sen. John E. Sununu’s $1.5 million.
And in Kansas, Democrat Adam Hamilton raised nearly $9.9 million to GOP Sen. Roger Marshall’s just $866,000.

Across those 10 Senate races, the Democratic campaigns raised more than five times as much as the Republican ones. Put another way: Talarico alone raised more than all those Republicans combined.

Marshall and Whatley each started October with less than $1 million left in the bank. Mike Collins wasn’t much better-positioned, entering the final weeks of the election with just over $1 million cash on hand.

These numbers do not include joint fundraising committees, which allow candidates to raise money and may have some more cash that has not yet been transferred to the campaigns.

Democrats have consistently outraised Republicans on the candidate level this cycle. But the yawning gaps heading into the midterm’s home stretch stand as the latest example of the deteriorating environment for the GOP.

And while GOP outside groups have significantly more money than Democrats, this candidate cash advantage matters because candidates get TV ads for much cheaper rates, letting their dollars stretch much farther.

To underscore how lopsided some of these figures are: At least half a dozen House Democratic challengers raised over $3 million in the third quarter — a sum higher than several GOP Senate incumbents.

There are some silver linings for the GOP.

In Minnesota, Republican Michele Tafoya raised $4.9 million to Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s $4.3 million. Tafoya started the month with $2.1 million to Flanagan’s $1.5 million.

Sullivan, Husted, Hinson, Rogers and Susan Collins all entered October with millions more in cash on hand than their Democratic opponents.

And Republicans are getting air cover from GOP super PACs bankrolled by billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc. that have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the midterms in recent weeks.

Musk was revealed on Thursday as the primary funder of Texas PAC, which has spent $131 million so far boosting Paxton and attacking Talarico. Musk gave $158 million to Senate Republicans’ super PAC arm last quarter, the filings showed, with the group in turn transferring the funds to the pro-Paxton PAC.

Republicans are also benefitting from a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows party committees to spend unlimited sums in coordination with candidates, allowing the National Republican Senatorial Committee to offset at least some of the differences.

Since the tranche of reports filed Thursday only cover until Sept. 30, the full scope of each candidates’ coffers is unknown.

But there are other signs that some are strapped for cash in the final sprint: Whatley has gone dark on television, a clear indication of him running low on funds even as his campaign insists it’s a temporary pause.

Politics

Inside the democratic socialists’ plan to shake up Congress

Published

1 hour ago

October 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Inside the democratic socialists’ plan to shake up Congress

lead image

Politics

Trump lashes out at Republicans as Ken Paxton struggles in Texas

Published

7 hours ago

October 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump is blaming fellow Republicans as his endorsed candidate, Ken Paxton, appears to be in a fierce struggle for a Senate seat in Texas with Democratic challenger James Talarico in a state the GOP has long taken for granted.

Trump, in a lengthy post to Truth Social Thursday, singled out longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove and Sen. John Cornyn, the incumbent who failed to secure the president’s endorsement in a heated primary.

Rove and Cornyn, Trump said, are doing “everything possible” to make it harder for Paxton to defeat Talarico, a state lawmaker and Presbyterian seminarian who is making a suprisingly strong run for Senate in deep red Texas.

“They are hurting Texas and, more importantly, hurting the United States of America!” Trump wrote. “If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove, who have ineffectively opposed me for my entire political career.”

Cornyn, a longtime fixture in Texas politics, lost his bid for reelection in a contentious Republican primary in which he and his supporters portrayed Paxton as a deeply flawed candidate. As Election Day approaches, public polling over the past two months has shown Talarico with a narrow edge against Paxton, the state’s attorney general.

Trump urged his supporters to back Paxton.

“Your favorite President (ME!) is asking all of those who supported Senator John Cornyn to UNITE, and immediately switch your support to Ken Paxton,” Trump said. “He will be a Great Senator, just like he is a Great Attorney General. “

The race has also become one of the most expensive non-presidential battles. Talarico raised $64 million this summer — the largest third-quarter haul of any Senate candidate in history. He has raised more than $134 million since launching his campaign last year.

Paxton raised $18 million in the third quarter of 2026 and last month announced a new $20 million ad buy. Earlier this month, though, a Trump operative told POLITICO that MAGA Inc. and its affiliates are could spend nearly $45 million on direct mail, TV and digital advertising in Texas through Oct. 12.

Already, $235 million has been spent by outside conservative groups and party committees against Talarico as national Republicans scramble to boost Paxton.

Some Republicans have grown concerned that the cost of the Texas race is diverting money needed in other states and have expressed frustrations with Paxton after leaked audio showed him blaming Trump for his woes.

Trump easily won Texas in 2024, winning just over 56% of the vote. But concerns about Republicans’ chances this November have surged as the president’s approval rating plummets.