Why it matters: Less than eight months before the Nov. 5 election, significant parts of the RNC’s get-out-the-vote operation in states likely to decide the election are playing catch-up after Trump’s team ousted 60 staffers in its recent takeover.
- About a third of those ousted staffers were state directors and regional political directors, jobs that are key to recruiting, training and mobilizing volunteers far ahead of Election Day.
- They’ve been in limbo for two weeks, after receiving an email telling them they were being laid off but could reapply for their jobs.
Zoom in: Some have reapplied, and have been asked to participate in virtual interviews with less than a day’s notice, a person familiar with the situation told Axios.
- One RNC staffer on the payroll through the end of this month was kicked out of their office by a Trump campaign aide, who also locked the staffer out of the data server the RNC has used to assist local campaigns.
The big picture: Many Republicans fear the RNC upheaval — and unrelated chaos in state parties, particularly in swing states Michigan and Arizona — is a setback for a party that for years has tried to get more volunteers to recruit support in their neighborhoods.
- That model was the GOP’s version of the local organizing methods that Democrat Barack Obama used to get elected president in 2008 and 2012.
- Obama had “a snowflake theory of organizing,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina told Axios. “It starts with a person on the inside, and then each layer out, you try to expand.”