Musk on stage at the America PAC event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on October 26.
Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Marshall Miller has been canvassing in crucial, vote-rich areas of eastern Pennsylvania for years. Miller, a local Democratic Party leader in his hometown of Lancaster, is accustomed to bumping into his Republican opponents while knocking on doors. Both sides maintain politeness – keeping a respectful distance or allowing the other to pass ahead if they both arrive at the same house at the same time.
But this year it’s been even more lonely on the sidewalks in the Keystone State. Miller says there’s rarely been a Republican knocking on the door in sight lately, and that remains true with only hours left before the polls close.
“Honestly, it seems a little weird,” Miller said as he headed to Delaware County to spend the afternoon counting votes. “Usually I would see them and nod or say ‘hello’ or something, but I’d knocked on a fair number of doors at this point and never seen them at all.”
The lack of evidence of a Republican ground operation in Pennsylvania and in several battleground states comes as the Trump campaign has tried a new approach to its “get out the vote” strategy: relying almost entirely on the US Super PAC, the super PAC Which is considered to have been largely funded by Elon Musk, who donated more than $120 million to Donald Trump’s election this year.
These efforts have been plagued by an endless series of stories attesting to their mismanagement and lack of focus. Earlier this week, Wired I mentioned That America PAC’s Michigan canvassers were hired from out of state without being told that their job was to knock on doors on Trump’s behalf, and once they arrived, they were transported in the back of a U-Haul truck with no seats and told that unless they met their vote-harvesting quotas, They will have to pay for their accommodation and travel tickets and will not be compensated for their work.
last month, The Guardian I mentioned A quarter of the door-knocking operations Musk’s reps said they completed were flagged by an auditor as fraudulent, with PAC foot soldiers not being near the location of the homes they were supposed to visit, and one tree trimmer even knocking on the door. While sitting at a nearby restaurant. America PAC is run by a political consulting firm run by Phil Cox, a prominent Republican operative who participated in a similar canvassing effort run by a PAC on behalf of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP primary before DeSantis caught fire in Iowa. Party conferences. After Cox was brought in over the summer, the super PAC ended its relationship with vendors who had previously worked with the PAC and brought in Cox’s vendors.
“I think it’s just an absolute joke,” said one former DeSantis campaign official. “There’s so much dysfunction in it. There are like three new articles every day about how terrible this is, and it just seems to be a cash cow for the people who run it. If Trump wins it won’t be because of anything these people do.”
In October, Musk acquired the X handle @America From its previous owner in order to promote his latest project. It’s pinned to the top of @America’s profile, right below its mission statement (“PAC was founded by @ElonMusk To support candidates who stand for secure borders, sensible spending, safe cities, a fair justice system, free speech, and self-protection” are options to apply to be a paid canvasser for $29-30 per hour. Experienced researchers, who are usually volunteers, say this is much higher than usual pay for the work.
These aren’t the only ways Musk is willing to spend his money. In October, he announced that he would give $47 to anyone who convinced even one registered voter in the swing state to sign a petition saying they supported the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution. The project was a way to get potential voters to register without violating federal law prohibiting paying people to register directly and a way to identify potential Trump voters. A few weeks later, Musk increased the gift to $100 for voters in Pennsylvania.
Musk then went further, announcing that he would give $1 million a day to one random signer on the petition. This caught the attention of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who filed a lawsuit, arguing that it amounted to running an illegal lottery. Musk’s lawyers sought to move the case to federal court, and on Thursday a federal judge halted the case before returning it to state court the next day.
While canvassers tend to be very open about their work since they are often volunteer-driven and involve public face-to-face networking, America PAC has been uneasy about its approach. The group has no real physical presence in the communities in which it operates, and a spokesman would only say that they are pushing mail, texting, digital outreach and door-to-door polling in their efforts to elect Trump. The spokesman acknowledged that the secrecy was unusual, but added: “Your reference to that will not change our approach.”
But if Musk’s initial foray into campaign advertising was messy, high-ranking Republican operatives and Trump campaign officials say his benefit to them was significant regardless. It’s been just over two years since Musk bought Twitter and renamed it A right-wing figure, while remaining a digital firebrand for journalists and the people they cover.
“He’s definitely trying to have an influence on the election, there’s no doubt about that,” said Joe Trippi, a longtime Democratic activist who is building his own social network, called Sez Us, as a counter to X. He just said CNN should be called the “fake news network” and has 200 million followers. “How could that not have an impact?”
Not only does Musk have enormous personal reach, Trippi noted, which he uses to amplify positive messages about Trump and spread negative messages (including some lies) about Democrats — but the X platform itself is now amplifying those effects. Anyone who clicks on the site’s algorithmically-controlled “For You” tab will likely see multiple posts from Musk himself, accompanied by viral posts misrepresenting Trump (for example, clips depicting a country overrun by immigrants and criminals).
Trump campaign officials have looked on in amazement at messages they’ve been struggling to attract attention to, like J.D. Vance’s visit to the border, which suddenly went viral online thanks to Musk’s boost. They say the help is more appreciated because under the site’s previous regime, many conservatives felt their voices were being censored or suppressed.
“It’s amazing,” said one Republican activist close to Trump. “He’s getting involved in politics in a way that no one in this type of position has ever done before, and he’s hitting all the pro-Trump, anti-Kamala notes you could ask for and making things go viral left and right. It’s not even that he owns the site, he’s getting involved in a way he’s never done before. Twitter, or X or whatever you call it, is still the place where media narratives are created on both sides of the aisle. Twelve percent of the US population uses Twitter, and this includes top Republican and Democratic activists.
Musk has been holding town halls across Pennsylvania, which, if nothing else, is garnering the campaign publicity on local media, which campaign officials say is far more than just coverage on cable TV and in the national press. When Musk appeared at a town hall in the central Pennsylvania city of Lancaster last week, the headline of the story on its local CBS News affiliate was: “Harris puppet”: Elon Musk returns to Pennsylvania for city council, promotes early voting ” A few days ago, a local television affiliate in Harrisburg quoted Musk telling town hall attendees that “safe cities, safe borders and sensible spending” are why he supports Trump. “To protect the Constitution, especially the right to freedom of expression. These are all things that seem very obvious and, frankly, natural, and they are in grave danger if the Kamala machine wins.” Story on ABC27News In Harrisburg.
One Trump campaign official described Musk as like Mike Lindell, the MyPillow tycoon who was a relentless Trump promoter in 2020 — except Musk is someone with “real money.”
“We just stand and marvel. It moves the needle for us with the young, unmotivated male votes that we need in a state like Pennsylvania,” this official said. “Politics is a game of inches. “Elon brings a foot forward.”
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