Ground game is vital as election season enters homestretch

By Megan Messerly

Friday, Oct. 7, 2016 | 2 a.m.

They don’t call Nevada a battleground state for nothing.

With 30 days left until the election (well, 32, but who’s counting?) the Silver State is anyone’s to win. Candidates in the two biggest-ticket races here — president and U.S. Senate — are statistically tied in the latest polls. Voter data on the state’s two House races are less plentiful, but the outcome of each still hangs in the balance.

You can see Nevada’s importance in its visitors, and not the ones coming for a weekend of fun on the Strip.

This week, the state played host to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine, former Republican President George W. Bush, and Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts.

At an outdoor amphitheater in Henderson, Trump declared to 7,000 of his supporters that he would win Nevada. If he doesn’t, “this will be the greatest waste of time, money and energy in my lifetime by a factor of 100,” he said.

Sure, ads matter, hence the seemingly endless deluge on your television, in your Facebook feed and, now, in your Snapchat story.

But talk to anyone — Republican and Democrat alike — and the single most effective way to persuade someone to turn out to vote is person-to-person. It’s why campaigns spend countless hours recruiting volunteers and countless dollars on paid canvassers.

Kaine and Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence both said it on trips to Nevada in August.

“The one thing (voters) haven’t tuned out is the value of the word from a friend, a neighbor, a co-worker, someone you go to school with,” Kaine told rally-goers at a union hall.

“Word of mouth is still the most powerful media in America and it always will be,” Pence told supporters in a Henderson convention hall.

That’s why the so-called “ground game” is so important: Each of the hundreds of thousands of doors knocked and phone calls made has the potential to turn just one more voter. Victory by a thousand cuts.

But there’s still a bit of skepticism from political observers about just how strong Trump’s ground game is compared to Clinton’s, given the unconventionality of his campaign.

“In the presidential race, really only one side has a ground game, and it’s going to be very interesting to see what effect that has,” said UNLV history professor Michael Green. “We know Donald Trump is unique, so does that uniqueness somehow obliterate the need for a ground game?”

That’s the biggest question, Green said. “Is Donald Trump enough?”

The Trump campaign, both separately and as part of a coordinated Republican campaign, is making the requisite phone calls and knocking doors. But they are, to at least some extent, relying on a certain Trump fever to carry them through to election day.

“We have enthusiasm and passion on our side and the right candidate,” said Trump’s state director Charles Munoz. “So while (Democrats) can boast about having this machine, we have folks that want to vote for our candidate, not folks that feel like they have to vote for their candidate.”

Munoz said that passion makes it easier to recruit volunteers, get the word out and then get voters to turn out for Trump.

From the Nevada polls he’s been involved with, UNLV political science professor David Damore said Clinton may not get high marks for inspiring enthusiasm, but voters do report that they feel it’s important to vote for her. The importance of voting for Clinton could be enough to trump the enthusiasm for Trump, he said.

Voters “feel like, ‘Wow, the outcome could really have a big impact on me. I may not be enthusiastic about what’s going on in the campaign, but it might be important to vote,’” Damore said.

When people try to say that Trump’s campaign isn’t organized, Munoz pushes back by pointing to Trump’s success in the caucuses. In Nevada, the campaign put 5,000 people through caucus and convention trainings, teaching those never before involved in politics about Robert’s Rules of Order, the dynamics of the convention and how to vote as delegates.

When the Nevada caucuses were said and done, Trump came in first with 46 percent of the vote, while Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz trailed at 24 percent and 21 percent, respectively.

Plus, the Trump campaign has assistance from the Republican National Committee, which, under the purview of chairman Reince Priebus, has modeled its turnout operation on Democratic President Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 victories. To that end, the Republican party landed early in the state back in 2015, and now has 65 staff members here along with thousands of volunteers.

The RNC’s goal was to build up infrastructure in Nevada early to support whomever the Republican nominee ended up being. When Trump became that person, staffers here set their sights squarely on him, knocking 500,000 doors and making close to a million phone calls since June.

Republicans also say they’re coordinating their campaigns more than ever before. The RNC, the state Republican party and the top Republican campaigns meet at least once a week, check in every day and share data back and forth, coordinating their mailings, polls and canvassing efforts.

Still, Nevada’s Republican congressional candidates are typically and noticeably missing at Trump rallies, with the exception of Republican businessman Danny Tarkanian.

The other two Republican congressional candidates — U.S. Senate candidate Joe Heck, a current congressman, and his colleague Rep. Cresent Hardy — are expected to rally supporters on Saturday alongside former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison and casino magnate Steve Wynn and his wife Andrea. (Romney has pledged never to support Trump.)

But Trump campaign staffers say they’re not worried that Heck and Hardy have tended to keep more to themselves publicly.

“We’re all running to win and we appreciate all the support that we work with from the Heck campaign, state party, everybody,” Munoz said. ”We’re all in this together. Whatever they want to do in terms of support we’ll obviously take and work with, but we’re here to elect Mr. Trump.”

Meanwhile, Democrats are feeling confident in their coordinated campaign. They have 17 campaign offices across the state and have secured a 77,000-person voter registration advantage over Republicans in Nevada.

It’s a bigger lead than they had in the same month in 2012 (71,000) but smaller than they had in 2008 (81,000). Plus, they’re counting on some of the nonpartisan voters swinging Democratic as well.

Democrats also like to highlight how many events their candidates participate in together. On Tuesday, U.S. Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto appeared at a rally in support of Hillary Clinton. And when Clinton was last in town in August, Cortez Masto, retiring U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and Congresswoman Dina Titus all spoke before her at her rally.

“The biggest thing is just that we are a united front here and we’re working to elect Democrats up and down the ticket,” said Clinton’s state director Jorge Neri. “It starts with Hillary Clinton.”

Democrats are known for their ability to mobilize voters to the polls, relying on the tested operation that Reid has built in the state and assisted by the strength of the powerful Culinary Union. For Republicans, it’s something to best.

For his part, Damore doesn’t think it’s going to be a clean election.

“It’s not going to be a nice Democratic sweep or a Republican sweep," Damore said. "I think you’re going to get some mixed outcomes.”