Donald Trump, already lagging behind Hillary Clinton in ground game organizing, is also facing a quantifiable talent gap in key battleground states, starting at the top.

And that’s according to his fellow Republicans.


Veteran Republican operatives and key leaders from several critical battleground states say that at best, they've never heard of Trump's state directors or have only limited familiarity with them — and at worst, they know them, and question their ability to do the job.

“The Clinton campaign is very strong in New Hampshire,” said Ryan Williams, who served as a longtime aide to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney and has extensive experience working in New Hampshire. Of Trump’s New Hampshire state director, Matt Ciepielowski, he said, “I’ve been doing campaigns in New Hampshire since ’08, I haven’t come across him.”

Across the country, one Nevada Republican said of Trump’s state director there, Charles Munoz: “I’m actually surprised, being one of the few battleground states out there, that they don’t have a more seasoned professional running their operation, because Hillary Clinton has a remarkable team on the ground in Nevada, demonstrating how seriously she’s taking the state.”

Trump’s list of state directors is peppered with a mix of young people who have no presidential campaign experience, as well as Republican operatives who have been out of the spotlight for years. In contrast, Clinton is boosted by Democratic operatives who led marquee races and helped shepherd Barack Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012.

In part, that’s a reflection of Trump’s outsider status: The Republican nominee, who has never held elected office and has upended just about every norm the Republican establishment holds dear, has attracted supporters and staffers who come from outside the GOP operative class.

In part, that disparity results from the refusal of many knowledgeable Republican operatives, including key Romney staffers from Williams to former chief strategist Stuart Stevens, to work for Trump. Even Trump’s Arizona state director, Brian Seitchik, was on the record as a Trump critic earlier this year before signing on with his team. In North Carolina, it took until this month for a more experienced hand to come in, following discontent with a previous state director, Earl Phillip, who is now the subject of a lawsuit that alleges he pulled a gun on another staffer.

And in part, it’s evidence of Trump’s haphazard interest in organizing state-level ground games: He initially ceded that effort to the Republican National Committee and the state parties—who, certainly, have capable staffers on the ground in key swing states. But last month Trump’s team did make an effort to show that they too were working in key states, rolling out a list of state directors and advisers.

Some of those state directors and advisers are well-respected and seasoned political professionals. But other state directors that Trump tapped and touted are still unknown quantities to the key players on the ground, in some cases clearly lacking the same kinds of networks and relationships that Clinton state directors are generally considered to possess.

Consider New Hampshire, where Ciepielowski has been serving as Trump’s state director for more than a year, following stints as a field director at Americans for Prosperity and as a Youth for Ron Paul regional coordinator in Louisiana.

“Matt who?” asked New Hampshire state Sen. Andy Sanborn, when asked if he knew Ciepielowski (who didn’t respond to requests for comment). After saying he was conducting a Google image search, the Republican lawmaker said, “I know Matt, his last name sent me for a loop.”

But he wasn’t aware that Ciepielowski was Trump’s New Hampshire state director.

“Your phone call is the first I’ve heard about him being an active participant in the Trump campaign,” Sanborn said, adding that he typically deals with Matt Mowers and Mike Biundo, respected operatives with deep New Hampshire knowledge, whom he praised—but who lack the state director title.

“I know who he is, doesn’t he work for the Trump campaign?” asked former New Hampshire House Speaker Bill O’Brien of Ciepielowski. O’Brien helped lead Ted Cruz’s grassroots-focused New Hampshire effort. “If we saw each other on the sidewalk I’d certainly say hi, but I don’t really know him that well.”

Meantime, Clinton’s New Hampshire state director, Mike Vlacich, is deeply wired in the state and has been for years, at one point serving as executive director of the state party. He also guided the re-election campaigns of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Gov. John Lynch.

Clinton lost the New Hampshire primary this year to Bernie Sanders, from neighboring Vermont, but both Clinton’s Democratic supporters and past detractors said that Vlacich is a serious operative who is well-respected and well-connected.

“I don’t think Secretary Clinton could have found a state director who knows the state better,” said Jay Surdukowski, a plugged-in New Hampshire Democrat who has criticized Clinton in the past.

Terry Shumaker, a longtime New Hampshire-based ally of the Clintons, said Vlacich was his “first choice” for the job, calling him “a seasoned veteran with good contacts throughout the political, governmental, educational and business sectors” of New Hampshire.

The two campaigns’ Virginia state directors are another study in contrasts.

Trump’s state director, Thomas Midanek, was until July managing the congressional campaign of Carl Domino in Florida, who in 2014 lost the Republican-leaning district by 20 percentage points. In Virginia, he has run or advised several House of Delegates races — including, notably, the primary campaign of longtime Speaker Bill Howell — and is known in northern Virginia, where one of the races was based.

But in other important parts of the state, including in GOP must-win regions, knowledgeable activists don’t know Midanek. “The name’s not ringing a bell to me,” said Eddie Whitlock, the GOP chair of Richmond-area Henrico County.

Trixie Averill, a vice chair of the Roanoke County GOP and a longtime GOP activist who like Whitlock spoke with POLITICO in an interview last week, was also unfamiliar: “No, I don’t even know who he is, so he definitely hasn’t reached out to me.”

Virginia GOP Chair John Whitbeck said he didn’t know why some of his state’s key players were unaware of Midanek, but praised the operative as “very organized, well-respected, has a great temperament, is patient. All the qualities you’re looking for in someone who’s got to lead a battleground state.”

He also noted that Corey Stewart, the Trump campaign chair in Virginia, sometimes has a more visible role as he travels and attends rallies.

Midanek didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Clinton’s Virginia state director is Brian Zuzenak, a well-wired Democratic operative who previously ran the political arm of Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s operation, giving him access to the governor’s statewide network of activists and donors. McAuliffe, a longtime ally of the Clinton family, was heavily involved in the statehouse races last cycle, requiring Zuzenak to develop relationships with key party leaders across Virginia.

“Gov. McAuliffe, he’s the leader of the party, he’s the top-ranked Democratic official statewide, so to be the governor’s political action committee director is the top position you can have,” said Clark Mercer, chief of staff to Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam. “It gives you credibility.”

Nationally, Trump started organizing much later than Clinton did—but certainly, a number of those state directors his campaign tapped do have extensive in-state experience.

For example, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman’s former campaign manager, Bob Paduchik, helped George W. Bush win the state and is a well-respected operative running Trump’s Ohio operation (though there are now reports that in perhaps the most critical county for Republicans in the state, the Trump operation is underwater). Rep. Sean Duffy’s former chief of staff, Pete Meachum, is helming Wisconsin.

And in several states, more seasoned advisers are heavily involved in Trump’s operations. In addition to Biundo and Mowers, David Urban, a former chief of staff to the late Sen. Arlen Specter, is a senior adviser in Pennsylvania. Further, Trump backers note, Trump won states like New Hampshire and Nevada in the primary despite the relative inexperience of his state directors there (though some veteran Republicans say he won because of his personality, not because of his organization).

Other Trump staffers have more dated experience: Colorado director Patrick Davis served as political director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2004, and did push polling on behalf of Mike Huckabee in 2007, over the then-presidential candidate’s objections. In 2014 he led a super PAC that fell apart amid allegations of fraud (he denied wrongdoing).

In an interview, Davis batted down the notion that being out of the game for longer than his Clinton counterparts could be problematic.

“The teams Mr. Trump has put together, in Colorado and around the country, are older, more experienced, and they know what tomorrow looks like,” he said, noting his experience aiding the Bush-Quayle ticket in 1992, Bob Dole in 1996, as executive director of the South Dakota GOP, and Bush-Cheney in 2004 with his role at the NRSC. “In a campaign like this, to a person, this is not their first high-profile, high-pressure campaign.”

Emmy Ruiz, Clinton’s Colorado state director, ran Obama’s general election effort in Nevada in 2012—one of several Clinton state directors to have had high-level roles on the Obama campaign, a list that also includes Chris Wyant, who was general election director for Obama's successful effort in Ohio in 2012 and is now Clinton's state director there.

The lack of similar recent presidential experience among Trump’s state directors is troubling to some of his supporters, who want to see a more serious commitment to the ground game fight.

Trump’s point person in Nevada is Charles Munoz, who attended the University of Las Vegas-Nevada and is in his mid-twenties. Until recently, he was aided by Jimmy Stracner, a well-regarded conservative operative in activist circles, but Stracner was let go late last month, stoking concerns among some who think Munoz needs the help of a more experienced hand.

Like several other Trump state directors, and ex-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Munoz’s background is with Americans for Prosperity. In college and after, Munoz worked as a field organizer for the group and made some contacts through that effort.

But the prominent Nevada Republican operative who expressed concerns about state organization suggested that experience wasn’t sufficient preparation to run a presidential campaign in a major battleground state, even though Trump won big in the Nevada caucuses with Munoz leading that effort.

“Obviously [Trump] had a resounding victory in our caucuses, but certainly, going up against Hillary Clinton’s machine…which is substantial, backed heavily by labor and a growing Hispanic population, you need all the help you can get,” the source said. “I would hope the Trump campaign will get a few more seasoned professionals in Nevada to help Munoz as we head into the general election.”

Clinton’s state director in Nevada is Jorge Neri, Obama’s 2012 Nevada field director who went on to serve as associate director of public engagement at the White House, where he focused on Latino outreach—a key constituency in Nevada. He and Ruiz helped Obama land 70 percent of the Latino vote in Nevada in 2012.

Heidi Wixom, a longtime activist in Nevada Republican circles who was heavily involved on behalf of Romney — and who is not currently supporting Trump or Clinton — asked for a spelling of Munoz’s name, when asked whether she was familiar with him.

“Oh, I do not know him at all,” she said. “No clue, nope, I don’t know him.”