'Serious setback': Trump's door-knocking plan in key states found to be 'potentially fake'
Donald Trump's efforts to get people to vote for him in two battleground states have been flagged as "potentially fake," according to a new report.
Trump enlisted the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, to help him with the campaign's get-out-the-vote plan, including in Arizona and Nevada. But those efforts may have been largely fraudulent, according to new exclusive reporting the The Guardian Saturday.
According to Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell, who has long covered Trump's campaign, "data suggests canvassers linked to Elon Musk’s America Pac falsely claimed to have visited homes of potential voters."
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"Donald Trump’s campaign may be failing to reach thousands of voters they hope to turn out in Arizona and Nevada, with roughly a quarter of door-knocks done by America Pac flagged by its canvassing app as potentially fraudulent, according to leaked data and people familiar with the matter," according to the report. "The potentially fake door-knocks – when canvassers falsely claim they visited a home – could present a serious setback to Trump as he and Kamala Harris remain even in the polls with fewer than 20 days to an election that increasingly appears set to be determined by turnout."
The Trump campaign earlier this year said it would outsource much of its door-knocking ground game to Musk's America Pac. But as the report shows, leaked data has now thrown that entire effort into question.
"But leaked America Pac data obtained by the Guardian shows that roughly 24% of the door-knocks in Arizona and 25% of the door-knocks in Nevada this week were flagged under 'unusual survey logs' by the Campaign Sidekick canvassing app," the weekend report says. "The Arizona data, for example, shows that out of 35,692 doors hit by 442 canvassers working for Blitz Canvassing in the America Pac operation on Wednesday, 8,511 doors were flagged under the unusual survey logs."
America Pac denied experiencing the levels of fraud being reported, but declined to provide a comment for the Guardian story. Musk himself has become increasingly involved in Trump's campaign over the last few months, and has been called out for reportedly suppressing anti-Trump information being shared on Musk's social media site, X (formerly Twitter).