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Feb. 21, 2025 - Epoch Times
16:30
What is Ballot Chasing and Why Is It So Important For Winning Elections? | Cliff Maloney
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Cliff Maloney, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders.
It's good to be here, Jan.
Well, you're back after about five years, I think, and you taught me all about something which I think now is called ballot chasing.
And that might sound a little bit strange or unusual.
What is ballot chasing?
Yeah, ballot chasing is after COVID, they changed a lot of the rules in these states to say, hey, listen, it's not just one day, election day, you have to show up.
But in states like Pennsylvania, there's 50 days of voting, right?
And so you get your mail-in ballot 50 days out, they're sitting on the table.
And what happens is the Democrats for years have understood this.
I tried telling you this back in 2019, that...
The Republicans have what we call volunteers, which are great efforts.
The grassroots need to participate.
But the Democrats have both volunteer efforts and paid community organizers, right?
The doorknockers that chase the ballots.
And it's such a difference because you have that consistency.
And so my question is always, if they're doing it, why aren't we?
And so last time we talked, I guess it was 2019, I was walking you through that, listen, I think there's some power to the doorknocking.
And then COVID really put us on the map because all the rules were changed and people realized, wait a second, we can't spend all of our money on television ads.
We have to compete there, but we have to put resources into these paid ground games the way the left does.
The paid ground game.
So what is the chasing exactly?
What's happening?
Give me the...
So three different types of door knocking, okay?
Whenever you're doing these what we'll call ground games or field programs.
So you're hiring individuals.
They're going door to door.
In a primary, it's tough, right?
Because I got to go and say, hey, this Republican good, this Republican bad, right?
You really have to convince them because it's in the weeds.
The second type of door-knocking would be general election door-knocking, where it's tough, once again, because you've got to talk to swing voters, right?
Maybe you're trying to convince them on a certain issue, so it's a moderate Democrat, but maybe they're good on guns.
The third, which is what we're doing, which is ballot chasing, it's the easiest, right?
You're going to the door of somebody who is a Trump supporter, and you're saying, listen, Bob, I know you've got a ballot sitting there on the dining room table.
I need you to send it in.
You're not persuading them.
You're not trying to convince on certain issues.
You are targeting Trump supporters that are unlikely to vote.
And so you've got to get them to become more likely to vote by going to their door, reminding them, and getting them to send that ballot back.
So you're saying this is something that is kind of standard procedure in some political circles, but a bit of a novelty?
Yeah, so the Democrats have done this for 10, 15, 20 years.
Republicans, it took COVID kicking us in the rear end.
To realize we need to do this.
And there's a couple phases to this.
Let me break it down.
Phase one, I'm going to use Pennsylvania specifically because we did this PHA's program.
Phase one was September 1 through October 1. And what you're doing during that phase is I'm going to voters that haven't voted in more than two of the last four elections.
So zero, one, or two of the last four elections they voted.
Not three or four.
And I'm going to them with a request form.
And it says, Jan, if you just sign this, we'll take the form, we'll deliver it, and then you'll get a ballot sent to your house.
So that's the whole first month.
And that universe is just Trump supporters that we want to make Trump voters.
The second phase, October 1 through Election Day, your entire universe that you're targeting changes.
And you're talking to every Republican that has a mail-in ballot sitting at their door.
So you're no longer trying to get people to request it.
The reason that's so important...
When we looked at the numbers in 2020, when we didn't chase any ballots, Trump lost Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes.
120,000 Republicans had a ballot that was sitting on their table.
Nobody ever talked to them, and they didn't send it back, and they didn't vote.
So a few people have told me that this chasing that you did in Pennsylvania could have actually been the difference.
Why don't you break down the numbers for me for what actually happened?
Yeah, so we launched this program about a year ago now, and we pretty much said, look, we think if we knock 500,000 doors, we can increase Trump's share of the mail-in vote.
So if you look at just mail-in votes in Pennsylvania in 2020, comparing Trump to Biden, Trump had roughly 20%.
So we're down 60 points going into Election Day, roughly 20 to 80. We said if we knock 500,000 doors, we think we can take that 20% to 33% against Harris.
Well, 33% we said we would win, handedly.
30% was probably a win.
But going from 20% to 33%, you know, was going to be difficult.
That's the chase.
Yes.
We hired 120 individuals full-time, September 1 through Election Day.
They knocked six days a week.
No work on Sunday.
They knocked 10 to 7 every day.
They get an hour for lunch for the lawyers listening.
But it's a grind, right?
It is not an easy job.
And so we knocked 510,000 doors was our final number.
And through the 10 Airbnbs that we housed them in, Trump ended up getting 34.5% of the mail-in against terrorists.
So to us, it was a smashing success.
By the way, a lot of pundits, political operatives, they say, Cliff, stop talking about the 33%.
They said that's a measurable goal.
Your career could be over if you don't hit it.
Just talk about the action.
Just talk about knocking the 500,000 doors.
And I said, you know, they said, well, what happens if you don't hit 33%?
I said, well, what happens if we do?
And I'm really, really proud that my team was honest.
We stuck with it.
And then when you hit your goal, it feels great.
Well, it strikes me that KPI, which is a favorite acronym for these metrics, right?
One that actually demonstrates effectiveness.
You think one would want to use that?
Not in politics, Jan.
That is very rare in the political world.
Really?
Yeah.
So what do people, I guess you would say, get away with?
Well, I think a lot of times people talk about action.
But I also, I mean, literally when we first met in 2019, I was trying to figure out why are the consultants not competing in this space when the left is just crushing it?
And it's pretty simple.
I mean, this might seem a little derogatory towards a political consultant class, but I don't make more money based on how many doors I knock, right?
The TV ad buyers, they're all getting their cut of 10%, 15%, 20%.
And so it is an incentive to stick with some of these big media buys.
And like I said, you have to do TV. But it took COVID and the 2020 loss.
2022 was not the year people wanted it to be.
For us to realize these rules are a problem.
And with these new rules, we have to knock more doors.
We have to do what the left does.
And I think the donor class and the voters, the activists, enough people just said, the Democrats don't put up with this.
They're very clear.
No, we have to do this strategy.
And they go out and execute.
But the best part is, it is not a fun job.
Okay, for me to get 120 people to knock doors full-time for two and a half months.
I had to go out and solicit and recruit about 1,100 applications.
We had to interview roughly 500 to 600 people.
And this is the part I'm never supposed to say.
We actually signed contracts with 180 people.
You might say, Cliff, you said you only had 120. Well, we do enough of these door programs.
We've knocked 8 million doors over the last 8 years.
I mean, we've really had some fun doing it.
180 started.
Well, 20 of them didn't show up, Jan.
Okay?
They never made it there.
Another 20 lasted 24 hours, right?
They get there, it's not for them, they're homesick, whatever.
And then another 20 kind of dwindled throughout.
It's a tough job.
And yeah, you have a lot of great conversations, but you also have people saying, get off my lawn.
You know, I don't want to talk to anybody.
So I always commend the folks that stick it out.
And how awesome would it be to be a 20-year-old, realize you showed up, helped us for two and a half months.
Lived in a community in an Airbnb with people that are there because you want to save the country.
And then on election night, Pennsylvania delivers the White House.
It was a really proud moment, but it was really cool to see the look in their eyes knowing that they pulled it off.
And so clearly there must be some incentive for making it all the way to the end, right?
Yeah, I mean, one, they're paid, right?
So these are not volunteers.
Two, we put them up in housing, we give them gas cards, we offer bonuses based on production.
And the coolest thing, I'll give Elon Musk's team a lot of credit for this, because they were the first people to push me on this, is they said, well, do you pay based on the incentive of getting a ballot back?
Because a lot of times we're paying based on door production.
And, you know, so we did implement that.
And it's cool because, you know, hey, you were assigned to these 120 doors this day.
And every day we're checking to see if the ballot comes back and then offering bonuses for when they're able to succeed.
So when they're coming back, they're getting paid more.
But usually once you get past the halfway point, nobody leaves because you're part of that family.
You don't want to give up on everybody.
You know, you're there.
You've had enough good doors and interactions with voters that you want to be part of this.
And everybody wants to be on election night, right?
The worst are the people who show up, you know, at 6 o'clock on election night and they want to knock two doors and then hang out at the party.
It's like, no, we don't allow that.
Get out of here.
We've been here for two months, busting our hump, going across the Commonwealth.
So it's an exciting thing for them.
Just to be a part of that.
And I understand there's a number of the other swing states.
This was also implemented, I believe, in Nevada.
Ned Ryan was telling me about that in Nevada.
I don't know how familiar you are.
Yeah, so I would say that this was the first cycle that we did what the left does, meaning certain groups were designated legally because you can't always coordinate on certain things.
But certain C4s, certain PACs would come in.
Charlie Kirk rocked Wisconsin and Arizona when it came to the chase.
Scott Pressler with Early Vote Action, he did all the registration.
Every gun show, every farm show, I mean, he's there, right?
And his team, they're there.
Other groups, America First Works, Ned's group, there are tons of these groups that were assigned to different states.
We didn't do this in 2020, right?
And look, I get hit sometimes.
New York Times did a big hit piece that said, Trump's Pennsylvania mail-in ballot guy says, quote, I hate mail-in ballots.
I do, right?
I'm not the spokesman to say that these rules are great and that this is something that, you know, we should be proud of.
But I'm going to play by the rules to win.
And so in 2020, I think this trajectory is what most Republicans felt.
In 2020, we said, no, we're going to vote on Election Day.
It's the most secure way to vote.
Okay.
We get shellacked in mail-in voting.
2021, we said, well, maybe the courts will fix it.
They didn't.
2022, we said, oh, maybe the legislature, they'll fix it.
They didn't.
2023, we got beat so bad in Pennsylvania.
I remember the morning after the election.
These are off-year elections, but it was brutal.
School board.
We just said, what are we going to do?
Like, we have to put some sort of plan together here.
And I think that trajectory showed in 2024. The RNC, Trump, all these groups said, okay.
We need to play in these early vote and chase-the-vote states, and we've got to match the Democrats at what they do.
You want to win, you want to beat FIRE, use FIRE. It's very simple.
Okay.
Well, clearly you met your metric, and some people got some great bonuses, and hopefully you did too.
And it sounds like you're very happy with the outcome.
Yeah, I mean, the big test now is...
2025, you know, what does it look like, right?
People are asking me, what's next?
What are you guys doing?
I have people in Virginia calling me.
I have the governor's candidates in New Jersey.
And look, we're going to look to help anywhere we can, but I'm doubling down on Pennsylvania.
If we make PA a red wall, Democrats cannot win a national election.
And so when I say that to people, they say, yeah, but it's an off year.
What are you going to do?
Well, let's look at what my political opponents are doing.
Okay, Governor Josh Shapiro, who's going to run for president in 28. He's up in Pennsylvania for re-election in 2026. Well, what's he doing?
He has a team of 100 full-time staff in the field as of last month because they understand on the left this is a 365 days a year type of thing.
You have to build culture.
You have to build behavior.
It's kind of weird to say it about voters, but it's the truth.
Getting them comfortable with the practice because in Pennsylvania you have to request your ballot.
So what we're doing is we're relaunching.
The Pennsylvania Chase is going to knock another 500,000 doors in 2025. Same exact model, 120 full-time people, between 8 to 12 Airbnbs.
And you might say, well, what are you focusing on?
Judge of elections.
The judge of elections races in Pennsylvania, we're going to try to win 1,000 of them.
These are local races.
They make the decisions about secure elections on Election Day.
Whoever wins for each precinct this year will control the 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029 elections.
The big ones being 26 and 28. Having that as kind of our method to get people excited about 2025, it's going to be tough, right?
Raising the money to flip the White House, getting people excited to chase ballots to flip and win the White House.
A little bit easier.
But that's my test for this year is to double down and really try to get people to see we need this to be permanent infrastructure if we want to make PA the red wall.
Yeah.
Well, and you're getting kind of people used to it at the local level.
But, you know, just as we finish up here, people tell me that local is really where it's at.
That's where you really facilitate change.
Like, everyone I talk to ultimately says this.
Right?
Your take?
The dog catcher takes more of your liberty away than the folks here in Washington.
It's the truth.
I mean...
That's right.
That's the libertarian in you.
Right, right.
So I tell people this all the time.
When we got tapped to do this P.A. Chase program, our group is Citizens Alliance.
We operate in four states.
Pennsylvania is my home state, so it was awesome to be able to target P.A. We do state races.
I love to do state and local, and we doorknock, right?
That's always been our method.
That's always been my focus.
This was the first time I really could justify doing a big federal race because you have to spend massive amounts of money and resources.
The local is where it's at.
And I don't mean that as a positive thing.
I mean that as if you're worried about your freedoms being infringed upon, a lot of times it's not coming from D.C. Not that they're Mother Teresa up here in D.C., but I do feel as if it's tough to get people interested locally.
They turn on the news.
And what are we talking about?
We're talking about the presidential race, right?
They're looking at the Senate races, congressional.
Focusing in on city council, school board, all of those local races, that is where you not only...
Have the most impact, but those are the people that rise up to run for Congress.
And so I always tell people, build a bench.
If you're looking to get involved locally, don't spend time building a party.
Don't spend time trying to get involved in a U.S. Senate race.
Find local candidates that represent your ideals.
Build them up.
That'll build the party.
That'll help up the ticket.
But it's crazy the amount of people that jump in and say, I'm going to run for Congress.
It's okay.
Do you have $5 million?
And do you have a year of your life you can take off without setting your family and businesses back?
Right?
Focus on the race where you can raise $10,000, $20,000, $25,000.
Be a viable candidate.
And we always care about two things.
Your principal and your viable.
Much easier to be viable running for local office than jumping in and running for U.S. Senate.
Well, Cliff Maloney, it's such a pleasure to have had you on again.
Jan, I appreciate you guys as always.
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