So I’ve been trying to delve further into my new favorite mystery: the GOP’s ground operation and what the heck is going on with it. So far, I’ve been looking back at articles I’d read and re-read at publication, and at articles I hadn’t read and reading for the first time, looking for clues to the Trump/RNC ground game question I discussed in recent to inform. One thing I hadn’t fully understood or perhaps had forgotten is that Turning Point USA and its main man Charlie Kirk played a huge role in pushing for Ronna McDaniel’s ouster from the RNC. And the push seems to have been largely to take over the GOP’s field operations or to play a bigger role. So a significant part of the impetus for all of this seems to be coming from Turning Point and its campaign arm, Turning Point Action. So that’s one clue.

Then there is the question of TPM Reader Don’t know collected for us yesterday. Democrats use NGP VAN as their platform for voter contact and field operations. The app version is called MiniVAN. Republicans often use NationBuilder, which is actually a nonpartisan app, unlike NGP VAN, which is only for progressives and Democrats. Don’t know said this:

“The GOP mainly uses NationBuilder, a perfectly comprehensive platform. Did these SuperPACs and such also have a contract with NationBuilder? Again, if they did, the impact on the ground game could be small. If they have some kind of venture capitalist disruptor idea to build their own databases or whatever, I’ll laugh out loud.

So there it turns out is a new app. I’m not entirely sure what the app is called, but it’s made by a company called Superfeed Technologies. And Superfeed is owned or run by a guy named Tyler Bowyer, the COO of Turning Point. (Bowyer is also a fake Arizona voter who is currently facing charges in the state.) Superfeed appears to have been owned or run by various groups of Arizona conservatives for a number of years. But at least now it’s controlled by Bowyer.

So that’s interesting.

One thing to note is that a new app doesn’t necessarily mean a new data ecosystem. My understanding is that the big player for the GOP voter base is a company called DataTrust. So to dig deeper into it DKs If you have several apps that all come from the same voter file and database of voter data, the impact of using one app over another can be limited.

Whatever Superfeed’s history, Bowyer specifically appears to have been the man who developed the app. Or it was his project. For example, in February, at a Turning Point summit called “Restoring National Confidence,” Bowyer and other Turning Pointers pitched state and local parties on bringing their outreach and recruitment efforts to the Superfeed app.

At some point in 2023, they began approaching major right-wing funders for a $108 million plan to do GOTV work in Arizona, Wisconsin, and a third state, Georgia or Michigan. The stories seem to differ. This New Yorker article, which details Turning Point’s current activities in Arizona, reports that Bowyer helped prepare a report for McDaniel in 2021 on how to mobilize grassroots Republicans. But according to a Turning Point Action source quoted in the article, “Ronna said, Goodbye, and that was basically it, she didn’t take it seriously.” This anecdote appears in a number of stories: how Turning Point and Bowyer, who was then co-chair of the RNC’s grassroots committee and RNC national committeeman, went to McDaniel with a plan to avoid losing election after election. she dismissed the idea because she simply didn’t care. As you can see, the anecdote becomes something of an origin story for McDaniel’s eventual ouster and how Turning Point got into the GOTV business. The same source (who may have been Bowyer himself) continued, “It was kind of like, if they’re not going to do it, we’re going to do it. That’s why we started building it ourselves.”

What all this means for the GOP’s ground operation in 2024, I don’t know. But at least it seems clear to me, clearer than before, that the impetus for a lot of this stuff started with Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk and the people around him. They began to cement their role as the GOP’s GOTV overseer, and McDaniel’s opposition to that led to his years-long war against her, which played a major role in her eventual ouster. The biggest immediate effect of that changing of the guard, with daughter-in-law Lara Trump and Michael Whatley taking over, was shutting down the RNC’s GOTV and field operations and outsourcing them to outside groups, the largest of which was Turning Point USA. and the associated groups.

One more detail.

When Turning Point first presented its $108 million plan to do GOTV work, it was for three states: Arizona (where they are based), Wisconsin, and Georgia. In some stories this was Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan, with more activists active in all swing states. The lack of specificity about Georgia or Michigan may indicate that the plan was flexible depending on who agreed to fund the plan. By late summer, the list had been narrowed to Arizona and Wisconsin due to limited resources, a Turning Point spokesperson said. Just this evening, Politico reported that Turning Point is pulling out of Wisconsin and transferring its operations to Elon Musk’s America PAC. The plan is presented as a combination of activities. But read the piece and that’s not quite it. As Turning Point spokesperson Andrew Kolvet told Politico: “With America PAC taking over much of the organization’s spending in Wisconsin, Turning Point Action will now redirect resources to the existing field program in Arizona and a new initiative where the organization pays for hotel costs. rooms for volunteers to knock on doors in Wisconsin and Arizona during early voting periods.” The decision is “not only good for Wisconsin,” but also allows Turning Point Action to “double down in Arizona.”

In other words, Turning Point Action, which appears to have played a major role in shaping the 2024 GOP ground game plan and was heralded as the force to take over the work of the RNC, now appears to be tantamount to fieldwork in Arizona with an agreement to pay for hotel rooms in Wisconsin.

Like I said, let me know what you see and hear.

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