Turning Point wants to revolutionize the way Republicans attract voters. Some are skeptical.

Now the organization has used its ties to Trump to expand its influence in a way that could be potentially lucrative. Turning Point is seeking to lead efforts to overhaul the GOP’s get-out-the-vote efforts on the theory that there are thousands of Trump supporters who rarely vote but could be swayed in this year’s election. They also believe that their new mobile application is crucial to the success of this venture.

The Associated Press obtained an unvarnished look at how Turning Point promotes its strategy by obtaining several recordings of presentations its representatives make to state and local Republican officials. In these presentations, Turning Point staffers spoke at length about churchgoers and hunters, citing statistics that purportedly show how few people from each group cast ballots in 2020. Their argument, disputed by critics, is that the groups such as Turning Point target such groups, Republicans Recordings show likely to take control of Trump.

Trump’s decision to rely on untested groups like Turning Point could have far-reaching consequences for the November election. Turning Point claims to operate statewide in Arizona and Wisconsin, two must-win states for Trump. He also runs in two competitive House districts, one in Michigan and the other in Nevada, which could also help tip the scales in the presidential race.

A difference of just a few thousand votes in battleground states can mean victory or defeat for candidates up and down the ballot. It’s also a risky move that turns out independent voters, a small but significant part of the electorate.

“Their strategy is wrong. They know how to talk to MAGA, they know how to get the message across to the base,” said Tyler Montague, an Arizona Republican strategist and longtime critic of Turning Point, referring to the former president’s Make America Great Again movement. “But they literally don’t know what to say to a swing voter. They scare these people away.”

A Turning Point spokesman rejected such criticism, saying the group plays an important role for conservative candidates. “We did this because we knew Conservatives needed” a way to identify and select voters, spokesman Andrew Kolvet said. He added that these efforts reflect the lessons Turning Point has learned from the defeats Republicans have suffered in Arizona in 2022 and elsewhere, and how Democrats have adopted similar tactics.

From influencers to organizers

Turning Point was founded in suburban Chicago more than a decade ago by Charlie Kirk, then a recent high school graduate, to raise the next generation of conservatives. But as its leaders emerged from the youth movement, the group’s far-right nature was less than compelling to Arizona general election voters, who rejected conservative candidates for statewide office in 2022, including gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

After these losses, Turning Point leaders showed a degree of introspection. Not only did they fail to mobilize GOP voters, Kirk also amplified Trump’s false claims that mail-in voting was rife with fraud, putting Republicans at a strategic disadvantage by discouraging a convenient way to cast a ballot.

They reversed course ahead of the 2024 election and launched a campaign to raise $108 million for a vote-chase operation that would expand beyond Arizona into key presidential swing states where they reliably reach Republican areas and encourage low-income voters. turnout to vote by mail. Kolvet, the Turning Point spokesman, said the effort has raised tens of millions of dollars so far.

Turning Point’s get-out-the-vote efforts are part of a broader effort to elect Trump that includes 30,000 volunteers recruited by the former president’s campaign, as well as work by such outside groups as Elon Musk’s America PAC, which paid at least at least $45 million this year for voter canvassing companies.

Musk’s PAC has taken over as the leader of voter mobilization efforts in Wisconsin, a position previously held by Turning Point. Turning Point will now play a secondary role in the state, focusing most of its attention on Arizona, as Politico previously reported.

A simple, if questionable, strategy

The group’s strategy is not complicated: its staff believe there is a large group of untapped conservative voters who did not support Trump in the last election. They believe the best way to get Trump back to the White House is to activate these voters. This strategy appears to largely ignore independents – or less staunch Republicans – because Turning Point’s far-right policies don’t seem to appeal to them.

Recordings obtained by the AP show Turning Point officials have fully embraced this strategy and believe it would help them win the previous election and secure victory in November.

“If we had even an ounce of votes chasing the ballot, just in Arizona,” Republicans would have won all their races, Turning Point official Matthew Martinez said at a June event in Detroit, referring to the practice of persuading people to vote early while also reaching out to those who did not vote

Martinez added that Republicans faced the same challenges in Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia. Martinez said that in all three states, “Republicans are honestly withdrawn.”

Kirk wrote this month that Turning Point had assigned a full-time employee or volunteer to pursue every low-propensity voter on the target list in Arizona.

Voting pattern experts doubt that Turning Point’s efforts to mobilize the few Trump-leaning voters will make much of an impact on the election. Experts noted that turnout in the last two presidential elections has already brought record numbers of voters to the polls, meaning the group of voters they want to attract is small and particularly unlikely to turn out.

“In these presidential election years, you had the highest turnout in Michigan than ever before. It’s doubtful they’ll get more than that,’ said Bernie Porn, a nonpartisan pollster who has worked in the state for more than 30 years.

“Just download the app”

For more than a year, Turning Point has been aggressively promoting its new voter mobilization app – a potentially lucrative venture that critics say could strengthen its grip on key Republican Party mechanisms. Recordings obtained by the AP show that Turning Point operatives rely heavily on their close ties to Trump, who regularly appears at Turning Point conferences, when meeting with state and local GOP leaders.

“We are now an official arm of the Trump campaign,” Turning Point agent Luke Malace told members of the Monroe County, Michigan, Republican Party earlier this year, urging the group to become a paying “client” of the company that created Turning Point. Spot application.

During the June event, Martinez told attendees concerned about helping Republicans win that the best way to help was to use the app.

“Sir, just download the app – everyone here, download it too,” said Martinez, the Turning Point official.

The app was designed by Superfeed, a company with direct ties to Turning Point leaders. Tyler Bowyer, Turning Point’s chief operating officer, serves on the company’s board and previously served as its president, business records show. Kirk’s mother-in-law also serves on the Superfeed board.

It’s unclear how much the company made from the apps designed for Turning Point and more than a dozen other GOP and conservative groups, including state parties in Arizona, Nevada and Delaware. Recent state and federal campaign finance disclosures show no payments to Superfeed.

Privately, a Turning Point representative made no attempt to hide the connection between the app and his group.

“It’s all in-house,” Malace said at a county reception in Michigan.

Malace did not respond to a request for comment. Superfeed representatives also did not respond to a request for comment.

Kolvet, the Turning Point spokesman, said Malace mischaracterized the organization’s relationship with the app’s developer. Turning Point does not receive any money earned by Superfeed, and the conservative group has no “financial relationship” with the app’s creator, Kolvet said.

“Our relationship with Superfeed is that we are the customer and they are the supplier,” Kolvet said.

Turning Point app and data plans face criticism

Some Republicans told the AP that there are serious problems with the Turning Point app, which provides minimal security measures to protect voters’ personal information.

The platform allows anyone who uses it, including an AP reporter, to quickly access detailed personal information, including voters’ names, addresses, ages and cell phone numbers. This is a departure from the security protocols adopted by other such platforms. Such protocols are intended to protect personal information and prevent competing sites from stealing data or spying on campaign strategies.

But not everyone is critical of the app.

Matt Brown, chairman of the Yakima County Republican Party in Washington, said he learned about the app while speaking at the Turning Point conference in December. Brown was delighted and decided to become a Superfeed customer and started using the app a few months ago. He declined to say how much the party is paying Superfeed, but praised Turning Point’s new direction.

“They’re doing the work that no one else wants to do, and the party isn’t doing it,” Brown said of the group.

The app is seen by Republican strategists as the latest example of the turning point’s increased focus on using data to strengthen its Republican role in the future. And these strategists worry that Turning Point is not following established data-sharing traditions within the Republican ecosystem and is not prepared to do the work needed to elect Republicans in swing states.

“We have played good ground games in the past, really good ground games. And they were led by the RNC,” said Ron Kaufman, a longtime Republican so close to the Republican National Committee that he was called “Mr. Trump.” RNC” in the past. “There is no point in handing over this operation to an outside organization that does not have the institutional knowledge that the commission has.”

For example, Turning Point does not share its voter data with Data Trust, a Republican clearinghouse that allows GOP campaigns and groups to use data collected by groups across the party ecosystem. Other GOP operatives have said Turning Point is not sharing data with key statewide battleground campaigns for which they are a priority.

Such data is the “lifeblood” of modern electioneering, said Montague, an Arizona Republican who has been critical of the Turning Point.

He said the group’s involvement in providing data to other groups is further evidence that it is trying to “take over the party at a national level.”

A Turning Point spokesman denied the accusations, saying the group was not seeking to take over the GOP and blaming Data Trust’s lack of data sharing when they started the job.

“It’s just crazy,” Kolvet said. “We don’t want this job.”