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I wanted to share with you some of my findings about the mass mailing of Trump mailers to registered Democrats in swing states across the country. It’s a bit of a rabbit hole. So in part, understand it as such, an entertaining mystery. But I think it’s potentially a bit more than a rabbit hole. It also sheds some light on the dynamics of the campaign, specifically on the Trump campaign, which has firepower heavily weighted toward a series of super PACs and outside groups both for messaging and ground operations.
As I’ve discussed in a few posts, I started hearing from readers who are registered Democrats with long histories of straight-ticket voting who are being inundated with Trump mailers. In some cases it’s as much as two or three mailers a day everyday. Others aren’t quite that level of saturation. But lots of readers who fit in what we’ll call the category of “poor target” are getting them. The reports come from all the swing states, though they’re concentrated in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and North Carolina. They’re also in Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada, but it seems to be a bit less there. In all cases the recipients have never seen anything like it before. So it’s not just that this is what always happens in swing states. Getting this many flyers from any Republican campaign is totally new. It all seems to have started in the last couple weeks.
Clearly, I don’t have robust scientifically collected data. TPM readers are a subset of the political population. I spoke about this on the site, and others were encouraged to come forward. So there’s a heavy self-selection at work. But I’ve examined many issues over the years using reports from readers. I have a pretty good feel for when something is widespread as opposed to a few edge cases here and there.
So what’s going on here? We know vast sums of money are being spent on both sides in what are now seven key swing states. I’ve tried to make sense of whether there might be so much money being spent by Republicans in these states that hitting this many Democratic partisans is just sort of the “splash,” as it were. On the other hand, are these pro-Trump super PACs just lighting money on fire? This is always the potential issue with the oligarch-driven super PACs. They’ve got unlimited money. But they’re not able to coordinate with the campaign, even if that barrier is probably pretty nominal at this point. And they may be suckers for consultants who are just trying to ring up big fees. Even if it’s partly this “splash,” it does seem like a wild level of burn on partisan Democrats, often in neighborhoods made up overwhelmingly of Democrats. And the recipients themselves, while used to the crazy volume of swing state spending in presidential campaigns, say it’s like nothing they’ve ever seen before.
And here’s an additional factor.
When I asked readers to show me the flyers and who they were from they were basically never from the Trump campaign. That didn’t surprise me. They were also seldom from super PACs. That did surprise me. In almost every case they’re from the state Republican Party — from the North Carolina GOP, from the Michigan GOP. In Pennsylvania they’re from something called the Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania. That’s a PAC which has existed since 1990 and I assume is a committee controlled by the state party, though that’s just my surmise.
What was so curious to me about this is that you could imagine one state party working with a vendor who has a terrible list or getting taken to the cleaners by a consultant charging them to spam everyone in the state with mailers. You could also imagine one super PAC doing this across the country. But why would seemingly every state party individually be doing this? That doesn’t really add up. What it seems like is that some entity is funneling these through individual state parties. One person who knows this world tells me that there’s a provision of federal law which gives state parties by far the cheapest mail rates. So that seems to be what’s going on here: some entity is doing this nationwide but running them all through state parties because state parties get the cheapest mail rates.
But there’s an additional thing I was trying to make sense of. One person I spoke to said it’s probably a super PAC going to a state party, giving them the mailers and a big check and having the state party send the mailer to their lists. But that doesn’t quite add up. Why would, say, the state party of Michigan or North Carolina have mail lists filled with Democrats? That wouldn’t make sense for party members but it also wouldn’t make sense for lists the state party keeps of swing voters who you hit at election time. (In one swing state I’ve actually found two Democrats in statewide elective office who’ve gotten these things.) That doesn’t make sense. I don’t have any good answer to this. Still a mystery to me.
One thing I wonder is this: Is this somehow downstream of the takeover of the RNC by Lara Trump and that dude from North Carolina? They torched a lot of institutional memory when they purged the RNC. Part of that takeover was taking field operations out of the RNC and outsourcing it to outfits like Turning Point USA. I didn’t hear anything similar about lists or direct mail. But could something similar be happening with these mailer storms? That’s pure speculation. But it seems like an obvious place to look. Or is it a super PAC? I saw a few examples of mailers from MAGAPAC. But again, overwhelmingly they appear to be from state parties.
That’s what I’ve got so far.
If you’re in a swing state and getting mailers like I’ve described above, here’s what you can do to add to my quest: Let me know the volume of mailers you’re getting. How many a day, how many a week? If possible, take a picture of the mailer and send it to me. (You can obscure you’re address. But you don’t need to. I’m never going to post something with your address on it.) I’m most interested in the part where it says who it’s from, the state party, a super PAC, the Trump campaign. If you’re not sending a picture, the exact name of the entity is important. For instance, as I said above, the difference between the Pennsylvania Republican Party and the Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania is important. Another thing to look for is whether your name or the name of someone else in your household is on the mailer. I’ve discovered that cheaper rates are available if mailers are sent to whole mail routes. That’s one potential mistargeting cause. But I’ve seen no examples of this yet. Also add a little about your voting history. Maybe you’re a Democrat but you’re actually registered as an independent. Or maybe you used to be a Republican but are now a Democrat. Those details are helpful.
Okay, that’s what I’ve got so far. Send me your examples. Seriously — each instance is helpful.