The Democrats find themselves out of power because they failed to embrace spaces where community connection is forged

Ahead of Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, Maga doubters abounded. It wasn’t just pollster J Ann Selzer’s infamous whiff in Iowa where Kamala Harris supposedly leapfrogged Trump on the eve of the election. One Democrat official in the battleground state of Pennsylvania went as far as to claim, “The Republicans, they really didn’t have a ground game.”

Others derided Trump’s ground game as subpar and vibes-based, for gambling on infrequent voters, for outsourcing operations to private groups like Elon Musk’s America Pac. In doing so, these critics overlooked conservative groups’ investment in spaces not typically viewed as electoral or even political. Republican strategists focused on off-the-radar communal groups that channeled low-propensity voters in a rightward direction. “We were more focused on relationships built,” explained Tyler Bowyer of the get-out-the-vote outfit Turning Point.