Turning Point executive director Charlie Kirk, left, moderates a conversation with Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance during Turning Point Action’s Chase the Vote campaign event at Generation Church in Mesa, Arizona, on September 4.
(CNN) — When absentee ballots first landed on doorsteps in Michigan last month, so did Paul Hudson, a Grand Rapids lawyer and a Republican running to represent the area in Congress. Armed with an app that told him where likely voters lived and which houses might be swayed, he spent that morning walking a densely populated purple community where single-story ranches with Trump flags neighbor homes with “Harris Walz” signs on their lush, well-manicured lawns.
It’s a conventional strategy to compete in close races, one battle-tested by campaigns big and small every election. And it’s a playbook that former President Donald Trump’s campaign has tossed aside.
Targeting irregular voters, teaching supporters to surveil polling places and bombarding states with voting-related lawsuits – …