Trump Campaign Hires 300 ‘Field Staffers’ to Address Surging Biden

WASHINGTON – The Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign announced Monday they’ve hired an additional 300 staffers to help get out the vote in 20 target states.

The new hires bring the field operation of Trump Victory, the joint effort of the two organizations, to 1,500, which the GOP says is the largest it has ever mounted.

At the same time, the Trump campaign says it is on pace to eclipse the 2.2 million volunteers who helped re-elect President Barack Obama in 2012.

The announcement comes as public and private polls show Trump trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden across key battleground states and nationally.

The most recent national polls have Biden leading Trump by anywhere from 4 to 12 percentage points.

Pollsters on the high end of the spectrum include the Monmouth University poll and USA Today, while the low end was captured by The Hill/HarrisX poll last Wednesday.

Even the Rasmussen Reports poll, which tends to skew Republican, showed Biden with a 10 point lead over Trump nationwide.

Trump campaign officials maintain that Biden’s summer surge is of little concern because their candidate also lagged in the polls in 2016, but managed to pull off the victory anyway.

They also noted Monday that Trump’s re-election staff count is more than double that of Biden, whose goal was 600 field staffers by the end of June.

RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel told the Associated Press that campaign staff and volunteers will take advantage of the party’s massive trove of data to target and reach out to the ever-smaller pool of swing voters who are undecided.

The party is also looking to bring out so-called “low-propensity voters” — many of whom like Trump but are unlikely to vote.

The RNC has invested more than $350 million on data, technology and field programs since 2013. A key tool is “Trump Talk,” which harnesses both political and commercial data to provide staffers and volunteers with a dynamic script to use when contacting voters in person or over the phone.

“In an election like this, where it’s going to come down to a few thousand votes in a couple of states, that’s when your ground game matters,” McDaniel said.

The campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden did not immediately comment on the Trump hiring announcement.

It did however announce key staff hires in Maine and Minnesota.

In Maine, James Stretch will serve as state director, having previously worked as a regional political director with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as well as on a number of federal, state and local campaigns.

Portland, Maine, City Councilor Spencer Thibodeau, is joining the Biden campaign as a senior advisor in the state. As a city councilor, Thibodeau served as chair of the city’s Sustainability and Transportation Committee and is a member of the Economic Development Committee.

In Minnesota, Ryan Doyle, who worked on Elizabeth Warren’s presidential primary campaign, joins the Biden campaign as state director, while Corey Day, longtime executive director of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, will serve as a senior advisor.

Lastly, Misha Battiste, previously national deputy director of surrogates for Elizabeth Warren’s primary campaign, will join Biden’s Minnesota team as coalitions director.