The campaign is relying on Trump Force Captains and outside groups to target low-propensity voters. This is what it looks like in action.
Lewistown, Pa. – This quaint borough of Mifflin County looks like the setting of an old-timey small-town Christmas movie, with gorgeous hilltops in the distance, loud church bells, and train tracks running through it.
Few of Lewistown’s roughly 8,500 residents were out and about on the downtown strip late Friday morning, when I pulled up late to a community center to observe a canvassing training led by Turning Point Action, the lobbying arm of the conservative group led by GOP personality Charlie Kirk. When no one answers the door, I start pulling out of the parking lot until I see folks wearing canvassing gear walking toward their cars. Asked who is running the show, they point me to Noah Formica, a Turning Point Pennsylvania field representative wearing a MAGA hat, cowboy boots, and a flannel, and his bespectacled middle-aged sidekick, a local volunteer named Juanita.
Both are initially hesitant to let me shadow their door-knocking routine and want to know what my “intentions” are. I explain that I’m interested in observing their early-voter door-knocking efforts and how they are helping the Trump campaign, which is relying on volunteer Trump Force Captains and a web of outside groups to target low-propensity Republican voters. This no-nonsense pair looks skeptical, and I don’t blame them — both presidential campaigns are also wary of allowing reporters to watch how their canvassers work, and reporters have worked overtime to criticize GOP groups’ turnout operations this cycle especially. They eventually relented and let me follow them to their next location.
We start head out of Lewistown, when a fire truck closes off a road and forces us to take a different route. Off Juanita goes in her Silver Ford Expedition, driving so fast I start to lose sight of her. She barrels through town and onto the freeway toward Brown township, zigging and zagging between lanes so fast that I start to wonder if she’s trying to lose me on purpose. And so what if she is? She’s got doors to knock and I’m not on the schedule. But soon enough, she pulls into a Rutter’s gas station and tells me to park and hop inside her car so I can observe them knock on doors.
The first house we hit around 12:30 PM on Friday is a bust, so they tuck some literature in the door. On to door number two just down the road. Juanita asks the sweet elderly woman who answers if she has a plan to get her mail-in ballot in on time. “Oh yes!” she exclaims, telling them how exciting it is that Trump is rallying the following day in State College, Pa., roughly thirty miles northwest of here, though she won’t be able to attend. On their way out, they tell her to make sure to get that ballot in, to watch Trump’s forthcoming podcast episode with Joe Rogan, and to read Turning Point’s flier with information about down-ballot Republicans.
None of this is very exciting stuff, but it’s the thankless job that must be done to compete with Democrats’ historically sophisticated early vote efforts and ground game.
Back inside the car they’re not very interested in making small talk with me or answering my questions. As they sift through reams of paper to settle on their next door-knocking location, a hitchhiker asks for a ride to Lewistown, and they politely wave him off. Reams of papers sit on the seats with voter registration data, and in the truck there’s a giant stack of signs that say something to the effect of: “Christians: Your Vote Matters!” I ask how confident they are that Trump will win Pennsylvania this year compared with their confidence levels in 2016 and 2020. “I work like we’re behind,” Juanita says, adding that she’s a gritty “farm girl” and will “fight” to win every possible vote. “I take nothing for granted.” They both estimate they’ve knocked on thousands of doors each.
When registered Republican households don’t answer, they will leave literature at the door. If the house looks like a home for kids, they’ll leave Trump stickers. And if they see a Trump-Vance sign in someone’s yard, they’ll often knock on the door even if the address is not on their list. They do this with one house, where a group of young construction workers are doing some remodeling. Noah asks the man near the front if he plans to vote. “Hell yeah!” he says. Noah tells them to vote Republican down-ballot, too so Trump can have his “warriors” when he’s in office. “Go Trump!” Noah says as he walks away, eliciting another “Hell yeah!” from the house.
Successful registered voter-turnout operations often require red-meat language at the door. The following day in a Harris-Walz campaign office in Erie, for example, one of Pennsylvania’s most competitive counties, a staffer named Jeremy instructs first-time volunteers to say some version of the following spiel when canvassing: “Our country is in a fight for its future, and V.P. Harris is giving us a new way forward. She’s running to bring down costs in groceries, housing, prescription drugs, and protect our freedoms,” he told the canvassers, as National Review reported later that day “Trump and his dangerous 2025 agenda would implement a nationwide sales tax, would threaten to cut Social Security and Medicare, and implement a nationwide abortion ban.”
Next door, we greet another elderly woman who is a former nursing colleague of Juanita’s. The woman explains that she hasn’t paid the hundred-something dollars it costs to renew her nursing license, but that she might have to soon since groceries are so expensive these days. That’s “Bidenomics” for you, Juanita says with a sigh.
This is where I leave Juanita and Noah, and they seem pleased to be rid of me. On my way out, I return to Lewistown and make a stop inside the Mifflin County GOP headquarters. I find two lovely elderly ladies sitting inside going through voter rolls as they watch Vivek Ramaswamy on TV being interviewed on Real America’s Voice. (Fox News has gotten too liberal, one of them explains.) I ask if there’s anyone around to be interviewed, and they refer me to Juanita or that “young man Noah,” who seem to be doing all the work around here.
If Republicans win by a narrow margin, they may have canvassers like Juanita and Noah to thank. If they lose, Turning Point Action will be among the many Republican groups whose methods will be scrutinized heading into the next election cycle.