It might seem like a small slice of the overall electorate, but in a 2020 race that is likely to be decided in the margins, the Trump campaign thinks it can succeed by mobilizing a few new voters and converting small pockets of traditionally Democratic voters.

“In the last campaign, we didn’t have the ability to collect the data from people showing up at the events. It was just too hard, took too much time and we had to prioritize, with limited resources, what we could do,” a senior campaign official said. “Now, we are not only able to collect the data, we’re able to have people phonebank, we’re able to train people how to volunteer. These are people who want to engage.”

Democrats question how novel or effective the Trump campaign’s data strategy really is. They argue the plan simply mirrors what every campaign does and flatly dispute the high estimates of Democrats attending Trump rallies. And they insist Democrats are actually more poised to turn out new voters or flip Republicans, given Trump’s high unfavorability ratings and the fact that the majority of non-voters in 2016 at least lean Democratic.

Indeed, all presidential campaigns acquire valuable lists of voters from the national parties, previous campaigns or public voting rolls. The Trump campaign is no different, obtaining a list of 200 million voter files from the Republican National Committee.

But by compiling names from Trump’s enormously popular rallies, his campaign says it's able to appeal to potential supporters in a way other campaigns haven't done.

One Republican digital strategist simply dubbed Trump’s additional names “hidden voters,” because they can’t be identified by other candidates from traditional voter lists. “Everyone generally has access to the same data,” the person said. “But these people are showing up and the other side can’t see them. They’re new voters that are secret.”

Brad Parscale, the Republican digital strategist turned Trump campaign manager, has started tweeting select statistics from rally ticket requests with brief comments, such as “mind boggling,” and “data gold.”

Supporters of President Donald Trump listen as he speaks during a campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C., on March 2, 2020. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

The Trump campaign is spending millions of dollars to hoover up personal data from potential supporters through digital ads, texts and attendance lists in the hopes of determining critical details like a person’s political registration and voting history. Armed with these estimates, the campaign creates specific political messages, tailoring everything down to the color of the ad, for these people.

It even had plans to launch an all-in-one smartphone app last year to help turn passive supporters into activists by letting them sign up for a rally, canvas a neighborhood, maybe even register to vote. The app has failed to materialize, though.

All of these methods are designed to help fulfill an ambitious goal of recruiting two million volunteers, holding 25,000 MAGA house party meetups and training 90,000 people to assist field staffers as they try to contact 24 million voters, primarily through knocking on doors.

Democratic strategist Doug Thornell said Trump is building on what previous candidates, including former President Barack Obama, have been doing for years. The difference is there are now more social media tools to reach potential voters.

“Every campaign is always looking to turn infrequent voters into frequent voters,” he said. “There’s some evidence of this on both sides of the aisle.”

But Thornell said Democrats actually have more opportunities than Republicans this year to reel in those who sat out last time, citing a Pew Research Center study that examined the 40 percent of eligible voters who didn’t cast a ballot in 2016. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents comprised 55 percent of those non-voters while 41 percent of the non-voters were Republicans and Republican leaners, the 2018 study showed.

“Democrats have a lot of voters they can pursue who have become disenchanted and need a reason to turn out and are waiting to be communicated with,” he said.

Trump filed for reelection on Inauguration Day — earlier than any incumbent presidential candidate in modern history — allowing him to immediately raise money, hire staff, air TV ads and start collecting data. He also never stopped the campaign-style rallies where his staff collects information.

Trump relies on his rallies almost exclusively to campaign, unlike other candidates who engage in small stops at diners, bus tours and hefty policy speeches. He has held nearly 100 rallies since he was sworn into office, most with thousands attending or watching outside on multiple jumbo screens — and even more RSVPing but not showing up.

The campaign has turned the rallies into multi-day events. Organizers have started to add music and food trucks outside the venues, where attendees wait for hours, sometimes days. High-profile surrogates, including Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr ., host other activities in the area. The rallies themselves dominate the local news beforehand and are featured in local TV ads afterward.

GOP digital strategist Rory McShane argued that Trump is able to garner potential new voters because his appeal — unlike most popular Republican or Democratic presidential candidates — is often outside the traditional party structure.

About 126,000 of the 1.4 million names collected at rallies come from people who have not voted in the last four elections, according to the Trump campaign. Another 168,000 did not vote in three of the last four elections, the campaign estimated.

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Michael Steel, a Republican strategist and onetime aide to former House Speaker John Boehner, said the president has managed to attract some Republicans who were skeptical of him in 2016 but now have come to approve of his agenda, including the 2017 tax cut overhaul, his nominations of conservative judges and cuts of government regulations.

Some aides have pushed the president to tone down his rhetoric at rallies to attempt to appeal to moderate voters, primarily the suburban women who voted for Trump in 2016 but flipped Democratic in 2018. But Trump has yet to heed such advice, frequently careening from one topic to another, including building a southern border wall , draining the swamp and locking up his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton.

Trump aides say it’s a common misconception that Trump is only speaking to his supporters — though he frequently holds rallies in states he won in 2016 — insisting huge numbers of Democrats attend his rallies or at least to sign up for them.

According to campaign estimates, more than 26 percent of the 158,632 who requested tickets to see Trump rally with party-switching Rep. Jeff Van Drew were Democrats. And it estimated that more than 25 percent of RSVPs for a February rally in New Hampshire were Democrats. At a Phoenix rally that same month, the campaign estimated that 18 percent of registrants were Democrats.

Some Democrats are wary of those numbers, insisting they must include Democrats who have been voting Republican for years, because polls have consistently shown Trump polling abysmally among Democrats.

"The percent of Democrats who approve of Donald Trump hovers around the margin of error of zero because he's not done one thing in four years to win over any Hillary Clinton voters,” said Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson, who worked for Clinton. “Claiming that one-out-of-five of his rally attendees are Democrats is like claiming he has the largest inauguration crowd in history. Period."

The Trump campaign now boasts that its list of voters has increased nearly 200 percent from 2016 to 2020, which aides say they hope to use to drive voter turnout.

“Data, data, data. We are a data driven campaign,” a second senior campaign official said. “It lets us understand who our Trump supporters are and who are our voters.”