A key group backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid bet at the outset of his campaign that the path to the nomination ran through literally out-knocking the competition on his behalf.
So it did. In early-voting states, the super PAC Never Back Down blanketed the ground with canvassers who knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors again and again (and in some cases, again and again after that), hoping to spread DeSantis’ message and better introduce him to the electorate.
Never Back Down, which runs much of DeSantis’ ground game, planned to spend $100 million carrying it out, and it invited reporters inside its door-knocking boot camp in Iowa. The group says it has hit 812,000 homes in Iowa — more than half of the total number of households in the state. A similar share was hit in South Carolina, where the group says it knocked on more than 968,000 doors. In New Hampshire, another 385,000. And while there have been a series of leadership shake-ups at the super PAC, it has remained focused on its field operation.
Some allies say they remain buoyed by the ground effort, particularly in Iowa, where the group has gathered 30,000 commitment cards from voters pledging to caucus on DeSantis’ behalf and a growing bench of precinct captains willing to speak on his behalf at caucus locations.
Three people who were involved in the group’s early-state canvassing, however, see a futile effort — one where no amount of door-knocking can change what the polls show: former President Donald Trump trouncing the field.
“People underestimated the core support [for Trump],” said a Republican field operative who worked on the pro-DeSantis effort in an early state, noting that “everyone pinned their hopes” on the door-knocking effort being able to move the polls. “And it could not be overcome.”
NBC News spoke with more than a dozen people about the state of the GOP ground game in the weeks leading up to the Iowa caucuses, where Never Back Down’s strategy will face its toughest test yet. Only now, there’s stiffer competition going door to door.
All in on Iowa
Until last month, Nikki Haley lacked a strong field operation. But she essentially received a whole army when the advocacy arm of Americans for Prosperity endorsed the former U.N. ambassador and pledged its grassroots muscle to help her on the ground.
The group says it has so far reached about 325,000 voters in the early-primary and Super Tuesday states, targeting people who previously supported Trump but are concerned he would lose in a rematch with President Joe Biden.
Drew Klein, an Iowa-based senior adviser for AFP, said the group will have 100 to 150 people at a time in the field canvassing for Haley in the state, an effort that’s been underway since its endorsement. The group has been out door-knocking and phone-banking since February — well before it endorsed Haley — seeking data on voters open to a Trump alternative.
Then there’s Trump, who has a couple of significant advantages over his rivals when it comes to ground efforts.
His team has tapered off door-knocking in Iowa but is continuing substantial door-knocking and phone-banking efforts in New Hampshire and South Carolina. The campaign says it has made hundreds of thousands of voter contacts in each early state.
Campaigns use door-knockers — volunteers or hired hands who go out to rally supporters to the polls and collect survey data — to gather intelligence and juice voter turnout. After the 2012 election, an academic study found that the presidential campaigns increased turnout by roughly 7% in areas they heavily canvassed.
In conversations with each of the campaigns or the outside groups backing their on-the-ground efforts, it was clear there was a new paramount focus in Iowa: recruiting precinct caucus captains to bring neighbors to caucus sites on Jan. 15 and speak on their candidates’ behalf there.
Trump’s strategy is centered on a “10 for Trump” plan, enlisting 1,800 precinct caucus captains across the state and providing each with a list of 10 first-time caucusgoers to turn out.
Haley’s campaign is also doing regular caucus trainings, said Emily Sukup Schmitt, co-chair of “Women for Nikki” in Iowa, explaining that it’s focused on both turning out voters and finding precinct captains.
DeSantis’ allies are focused here, too, with a person familiar saying the goal is to be two-deep with precinct captains at every location, ensuring that if one person is not properly engaging, they have a backup plan. With Iowa viewed as a make-or-break state for DeSantis, his allies have pulled resources from elsewhere to focus them there. Three people familiar with this development said Never Back Down recently relocated door-knockers from South Carolina to Iowa. One super PAC official said the goal is to have hit every targeted home at least five times before the Jan. 15 caucuses.
“It cannot be overstated,” the DeSantis ally said of the ground effort’s importance to their overall hopes.
