This week, new reporting from the Associated Press deep dives into the GOP’s efforts to prop up third-party candidates Cornel West and Jill Stein to help them spoil the election for Donald Trump. 

This follows recent reporting from USA Today that a Republican-aligned canvassing firm, Blair Group Consulting, helped West gather signatures in Wisconsin. 

Associated Press: GOP network props up liberal third-party candidates in key states, hoping to siphon off Harris votes

By: Brian Slodysko and Dan Merica 

• Across the country, a network of Republican political operatives, lawyers and their allies is trying to shape November’s election in ways that favor former President Donald Trump. Their goal is to prop up third-party candidates such as West who offer liberal voters an alternative that could siphon away support from Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
• Trump has offered praise for West, calling him “one of my favorite candidates.” Another is Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Trump favors both for the same reason. “I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100% from them. He takes 100%.”
• One key figure in the push is Paul Hamrick […] Hamrick serves as counsel for the Virginia-based nonprofit People Over Party, which has pushed to get West on the ballot in Arizona, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Virginia, as well as North Carolina, records show.
• […] Hamrick voted in Alabama’s Republican primary in 2002, 2006 and 2010, according to state voting records maintained by the political data firm L2. He was tapped briefly in 2011 to work for the Alabama state Senate’s Republican majority. And since 2015, according to federal campaign finance disclosures, he has contributed only to GOP causes […] 
• For years, he was a consultant for Matrix LLC, […] Matrix LLC was part of an effort in Florida to run “ghost candidates” against elected officials who had raised the ire of executives for Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest utility.
• Daniella Levine Cava, the current mayor of Miami-Dade County, was a target. As a county commissioner, Levine Cava had fought with FPL. When she ran for reelection in 2018, Matrix covertly financed a third-party candidate they hoped would siphon enough votes to tip her seat to a Republican challenger, The Miami Herald reported in 2022.
• Hamrick was deeply involved. A company he created paid the spoiler candidate a $60,000 salary and rented a $2,300-a-month home for him, according to the newspaper and business filings made in Alabama. 
• Now Hamrick is playing a prominent role to place West’s name on the ballot in competitive states. Hamrick surfaced in Arizona two weeks ago after a woman told the AP that a document was fraudulently submitted in her name to Arizona’s secretary of state in which she purportedly agreed to serve as an elector for West. She said her signature was forged and she never agreed to be an elector.
• After the AP published her account, Hamrick said he spoke to the woman’s husband, trying to rectify the situation and “gave some information.” Hamrick declined to say what information was shared. He also tried to persuade another elector who backed out to recommit to West, according to interviews and voicemails.
• The next day, with the deadline to qualify for the Arizona ballot just hours away, Brett Johnson, a prominent Republican lawyer, and Amanda Reeve, a former GOP state lawmaker, made house visits to each as they tried to persuade both to sign new paperwork to serve as West electors.
• Johnson and Reeve work for Snell & Wilmer, which has done $257,000 worth of business for the Republican National Committee over the past two years, campaign finance disclosures show.
• In Georgia, Bryan Tyson, a partner at the Election Law Group, represented the state Republican Party as it tried to keep West on the ballot. The firm has collected $60,000 in payments from the RNC since April, campaign finance records show.
•  In North Carolina, Phil Strach, a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association, successfully challenged in court a North Carolina State Board of Elections decision to bar West from the ballot.
• In Michigan, John Bursch, a senior lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative legal group that helped overturn Roe v. Wade, successfully fended off a challenge to West’s placement on the ballot. Bursch’s firm, Bursch Law PLLC, was paid $25,000 by Trump’s campaign in November 2020 for “RECOUNT: LEGAL CONSULTING,” according to campaign finance disclosures.
• In Pennsylvania, a lawyer with long-standing ties to Republican candidates and causes, unsuccessfully argued in August for West to stay on the ballot. […] People Over Party, the group Hamrick is affiliated with, had tried to get West on the ballot. None of these actions was funded by West’s campaign, though he and his “Justice for All” party have coordinated at times with Hamrick’s People Over Party, according to legal filings, a news release and social media posts.
• In North Carolina, People Over Party, worked with Blitz Canvassing and Campaign & Petition Management — two firms that routinely work for the GOP — to gather signatures for West.
• In Wisconsin, Blair Group Consulting oversaw West’s petition signature drive to qualify for the ballot, as previously reported by USA Today. David Blair, the firm’s president, was the national director of Youth for Trump during the 2016 campaign and was a spokesman in the Trump administration.
• Mark Jacoby, whose signature gathering firm Let the Voters Decide often works for Republicans, was involved in the failed Arizona push to get West on the ballot. The California operative was convicted in 2009 of voter registration fraud, court records show.
• Jefferson Thomas, a longtime Republican operative from Colorado, submitted petition signatures that his firm, The Synapse Group, gathered on behalf of Stein in New Hampshire, records show.