In response to the RNC still lacking the infrastructure and field operation needed to compete in November, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement: 

“Donald Trump’s MAGA takeover of the RNC has left the Republican Party in shambles, lacking the ground game and infrastructure to compete this November. His handpicked ‘ultra-MAGA’ leadership team of Michael Whatley and Lara Trump not only led a massive purge of RNC staff but also doubled down with an election denier litmus test for hiring as they paused outreach plans – and now the committee is left struggling with the basic task of reaching voters. We’re not holding our breath on things changing anytime soon: At the end of the day, it’s clear that Trump and his MAGA allies are more focused on his humiliating loss in 2020 than trying to compete to win in 2024.”

NEW: The RNC’s field operation is still nearly non-existent thanks to Donald Trump’s MAGA takeover that was centered around his extreme election denialism. 

The Dispatch: “RNC-Trump Campaign Field Program Runs Aground”

“The Republican National Committee was poised to open and staff 40 satellite campaign offices across key battlegrounds when former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive GOP nominee, abruptly replaced RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and her deputies with fresh leadership. … Roughly six weeks later, neither the committee nor the Trump campaign has much infrastructure or personnel in the swing states that will decide the November 5 election, multiple sources in Washington and the crucial battleground states told Dispatch Politics this week. 

“That means few if any regional and local campaign headquarters; little to no deployed field staff; and little to no traditional voter turnout activities, such as door-knocking, phone banking, or volunteer organizing. Even after the Trump-led RNC’s reimagined field program eventually emerges, their strategy is to concentrate almost exclusively on the half-dozen states that will determine Trump’s fate. Republicans elsewhere? They’re on their own. 

“The RNC was aggressively staffing up in 10-plus states and it was put on hold when Trump started to make the changes at the RNC,” a veteran Republican field operative said.

“In early March, the RNC’s new leadership sacked more than 60 full-time staff across the communications, data, and political departments. As Dispatch Politics reported soon after, roughly 40 of the 60 let go were field troops. 

“Weeks later, the field program is lagging, especially compared to the voter turnout operation stood up by President Joe Biden. The incumbent Democrat’s campaign has opened 30 headquarters alone in Michigan and has multiple such offices in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Florida.

“We checked in with Republican operatives in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. They see little evidence, if any, that typical get-out-the-vote activities—including voter registration and volunteer recruitment and training—are happening. Nor have they seen any signs that there is staff on the ground to conduct such activities. They say they do not expect the RNC to address the problem anytime soon.

“This concern is especially acute for Republican strategists working down-ticket races that could determine control of a closely divided Congress—not just in so-called orphan states like California and New York, but in targeted presidential battlegrounds like Pennsylvania.”

Trump’s campaign and the RNC remain in financial and organizational disarray.

NBC News: “Biden is building a behemoth of a campaign. Trump at this point seems to be playing catch-up.”

“Trump’s advisers would not disclose staffing levels, but his ground game still seems to be at a nascent stage.

“Combined, the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee have fewer than five staff members in each of the battleground states, said two Republicans familiar with the committee and the Trump campaign’s organizational structures in 2020 and 2024.”

Daily Beast: “While the new RNC leadership has centered its messaging on a combination of Trump-centric fundraising and budgetary cuts, the latest filings don’t yet reflect significant changes on either end. On the spending side, the latest filings show that the RNC’s operating budget actually increased by nearly $1.2 million over the previous month. … A closer look at the RNC’s own filings reveals some persistent hidden weaknesses.”

Financial Times: “Donald Trump falls $75mn behind Joe Biden in money race as donor base shrinks”

Associated Press: “Trump’s political operation is struggling to catch up to Biden on fundraising and organization.”

Fox News: “Democrats hold vast fundraising advantage as Republicans face cash problems, disarray in crucial swing states”

“According to year-end reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) this week, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) holds nearly three times the cash on hand reported by the Republican National Committee (RNC), and brought in nearly three times as much fundraising in the final month of 2023.

“The RNC reported its worst fundraising year since 2013 raising just $87.2 million in 2023, and starting 2024 with just over $8 million in cash on hand. If adjusted for inflation, the RNC’s fundraising was last this low in 1993 — before the 2002 McCain Feingold Act restricted political committee fundraising from corporations and capped donations from individuals.”