Cleveland (CNN) As Donald Trump 's convention moment arrives, one overriding concern among Republican delegates from battleground states is the lack of evidence pointing to a campaign ground game capable of competing with Hillary Clinton 's virtual army deployed to target voters.

Their fear: a fall campaign understaffed on the ground and under fire on the air in ways that swing-state Republicans haven't seen in the modern era.

But Trump's political team told CNN that it is preparing a major battleground state push in August that will flesh out their skeletal staff and lay the groundwork for sophisticated micro-targeting operation this fall.

While even the Republican National Committee had struggled to get complete staff lists from the Trump operation for much of the last month, the campaign shared a list of 13 battleground state directors and advisers on Monday, including in long shot states like Michigan and Maine.

"We are at the point where we can push the button," a Trump strategist who spoke on background to discuss internal deliberations. Given the enthusiasm of Trump's supporters: "It's like directing a firehose."

The team has identified more than 4 million registered voters nationally it believes have a high likelihood of supporting Trump, but are low-propensity -- and they are gearing up to target those voters.

Trump's campaign knows it has a great deal of work to do with married female voters between the ages of 35 to 54, who have concerns about the billionaire's temperament. It plans to expand its outreach to those voters by moving beyond big rallies, and putting Trump in more intimate settings in coming months like voter town halls where he can address concerns more directly. Trump aides believe that many of those voters -- particularly independent women -- who have issues with Trump's temperament line up with his views in other areas like trade, jobs and the economy and education. They are planning a more direct focus on those issues in the upcoming smaller events.

The question, however, given Trump's late fundraising start and limited cash-on-hand, is whether the Trump campaign will have the resources to create an even playing field with Clinton and make up for the opportunities they lost to build off the excitement of its historic GOP primary campaign.

Up until now the Trump campaign has relied heavily on the RNC not only to lead the charge on identifying and contacting voters, but to head the joint fundraising effort and even help with basic tasks like scheduling and policy briefings -- normally under the direct purview of the presidential campaign.

"Every single day, you have so much daylight and you have so many waking hours," said Scott Jennings, a former George W. Bush hand who ran Mitt Romney's Ohio operation in 2012. "Obviously all those thing get exacerbated. The staffing levels are less. The paid media levels are less. You wind up with less stuff and people, and it's hurtful."

The Trump campaign insists it's not behind -- pointing to the tens of millions of dollars Clinton has spent on advertising only to end up even with him in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.

Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm What started out as the summer of Trump soon turned into the autumn of Trump, and as 2015 comes to an end, Donald Trump continues to dominate the Republican field of presidential candidates. Hide Caption 1 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm An image of Trump is seen on the Las Vegas Strip on December 14. Las Vegas was hosting a CNN presidential debate. Hide Caption 2 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump pretends to sleep December 7 as he references fellow candidate Jeb Bush at a Pearl Harbor Day Rally in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. It was here that Trump read a press release calling for a "complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" in light of the San Bernardino terror attacks. Hide Caption 3 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm A group of Muslim-Americans rally in front of New York's Trump Tower on December 20 to protest Trump's proposal to ban Muslims. Hide Caption 4 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm British newspapers showcase reactions to Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. An online petition to ban Trump from entering Britain garnered more than 300,000 signatures. Hide Caption 5 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump was in the running for Time magazine's Person of the Year and was not pleased when German Chancellor Angela Merkel was selected instead. Alongside a profile on Trump, the publication published a behind-the-scenes video of a photo shoot from August. The video featured blooper-reel moments with Trump's co-star of the shoot, a bald eagle named Uncle Sam. The eagle ruffles its feathers, startling Trump. Hide Caption 6 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump flips his belt buckle while slamming fellow Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson during a 95-minute tirade on November 12. Trump mocked Carson's story that as a boy, he once tried but failed to stab someone only to have the knife broken by a belt buckle. "So I have a belt: Somebody hits me with a belt, it's going in because the belt moves this way. It moves this way, it moves that way," Trump told the crowd in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Hide Caption 7 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump appears in a parody of Drake's "Hotline Bling" video while hosting "Saturday Night Live" on November 7. The episode brought in an average of 9.3 million viewers -- the show's biggest audience in years. Hide Caption 8 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Members of Latino organizations march from the Trump Tower to NBC studios in New York to protest Trump's "Saturday Night Live" appearance on November 7. Hide Caption 9 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm A Trump supporter stands across the street from the Latino protest in New York on November 7. Hide Caption 10 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm A man holds a copy of Trump's newest book, "Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again," while he waits to have it signed by Trump outside Trump Tower in New York on November 3. Hide Caption 11 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump invites Colombian-born super fan Myriam Witcher on the stage during a campaign rally in Las Vegas on October 8. "I am Hispanic and I vote for Mr. Trump. We vote for Mr. Trump!" Witcher exclaimed. Hide Caption 12 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump speaks during the campaign rally in Las Vegas on October 8. During the rally, Trump said people were giving him credit for helping force House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to bow out of the race for Speaker of the House. Hide Caption 13 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump is greeted on stage by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a fellow Republican presidential candidate, before speaking at a Washington rally organized by the Tea Party Patriots on September 9. Hide Caption 14 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump asks an audience member to inspect his hair to verify it's real during an event in Greenville, South Carolina, on August 27. Hide Caption 15 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump takes a question from Univision and Fusion anchor Jorge Ramos during a press conference at the Grand River Center in Dubuque, Iowa, on August 25. Earlier, Trump had Ramos removed from the room after the two squabbled over Trump's immigration stance. "Sit down. Sit down. Sit down," Trump said, adding, "Go back to Univision." Hide Caption 16 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Laci Lamb, 6, declares Trump "awesome" and cheers at a Trump rally in Mobile, Alabama, on August 21. Her mother, Annie, made her outfit. "He's the best candidate we've had in a long time," Annie Lamb said. Hide Caption 17 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump greets fans after the Mobile rally, where more than 30,000 supporters from deep-red Alabama gathered in a football stadium. Hide Caption 18 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump speaks with reporters after arriving at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on August 15. Trump gave children rides on his helicopter. Hide Caption 19 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump eats a pork chop on a stick and gives a thumbs-up sign to fairgoers while campaigning at the Iowa State Fair on August 15. Hide Caption 20 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump fields a question during the first Republican presidential debate, which was held August 6 in Cleveland. Following the debate, Trump launched what would become an ongoing feud with Fox News host and debate moderator Megyn Kelly, tweeting and retweeting attacks against Kelly into the early hours of the morning. Hide Caption 21 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump takes a break from the campaign trail and visits his golf course Turnberry in Ayr, Scotland, with his daughter Ivanka on July 30. Hide Caption 22 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump talks to the media along the U.S.-Mexico border during a trip to Laredo, Texas, on July 23. This is where Trump first premiered his "Make America Great Again" hat. Hide Caption 23 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump gives out U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham's private cell phone number at a rally in Graham's home state of South Carolina on July 22. He urged attendees to "give it a shot" and call it. The two presidential candidates engaged in a feud in which Graham called Trump a "jackass" and Trump called Graham "a total lightweight." Hide Caption 24 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm A Trump piñata is set up inside Lorena Robletto's shop in downtown Los Angeles. Piñatas in Trump's image became hot sellers following outrage and anger over his rhetoric about Mexican immigrants. Hide Caption 25 of 26 Photos: The year Donald Trump took politics by storm Trump poses with his family after he announced his candidacy June 16 at Trump Tower in New York. Pictured with Trump, from left to right, are Trump's son Eric Trump, daughter in-law Lara Yunaska Trump, son Barron Trump, wife Melania Trump, daughter-in-law Vanessa Haydon Trump, granddaughter Kai Madison, son Donald Trump Jr., grandson Donald John Trump III, and daughter Ivanka Trump. Trump called for erecting a massive wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and said Mexican immigrations are 'bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Hide Caption 26 of 26

Trump has previously scoffed at traditional campaign machinery as an unnecessary waste of money. Given his ability to reach millions of people with a simple tweet, for instance, he had indicated that traditional field and data and analytics operation would not be key to winning in November.

Because of that philosophy, one top political adviser to Trump said that his campaign team would never have the same footprint as Clinton, or even Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012. But Trump staffers still believe they can win with their more streamlined structure.

"There is an ability for us to move nimbly. (The campaign) has been lean and mean -- we are not going to ruin that culture," said Trump's national political director, Jim Murphy.

Still in conversations with more than two dozen Republican political operatives, state party chairmen and GOP vendors from around the country, many said they were alarmed by how far behind the Trump campaign is in harnessing the enormous energy of his supporters into actual grass-roots organizing.

Republican volunteers and activists going door to door in some target states often have not even had Trump literature to hand out to undecided voters.

Trump Tower has yet to allocate specific fall budgets to battleground state directors, a Trump campaign official said. That has delayed the party's ability to build an effective grass-roots organizing machine that pairs Trump supporters with the activists that the RNC has enlisted over the past few years.

"There's no redundancy in politics," said Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Rob Gleason, a member of Trump's finance team. "There's never too much advertising, too many phone calls, too many door-to-door. There's never too many. I wish people would've been up on the air six months ago."

Gleason said he shared that advice with Trump about a month ago. The reply from Trump, Gleason said, was "But I've got billions of dollars of free publicity!"

Several state chairs said they have been baffled by their inability to get the most basic components from the campaign -- like campaign signs. Explanations last week have varied from printing delays to the idea that the campaign should wait to do a full printing run until after Trump selected his vice presidential nominee.

Photos: Donald Trump's rise President-elect Donald Trump has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate and producing and starring in TV shows, he became a celebrity long before winning the White House. Hide Caption 1 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump at age 4. He was born in 1946 to Fred and Mary Trump in New York City. His father was a real estate developer. Hide Caption 2 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump, left, in a family photo. He was the second-youngest of five children. Hide Caption 3 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump, center, stands at attention during his senior year at the New York Military Academy in 1964. Hide Caption 4 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump, center, wears a baseball uniform at the New York Military Academy in 1964. After he graduated from the boarding school, he went to college. He started at Fordham University before transferring and later graduating from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania's business school. Hide Caption 5 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating college in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City. Hide Caption 6 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump attends an event to mark the start of construction of the New York Convention Center in 1979. Hide Caption 7 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump wears a hard hat at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980. Hide Caption 8 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977 to 1990, when they divorced. They had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric. Hide Caption 9 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise The Trump family, circa 1986. Hide Caption 10 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump uses his personal helicopter to get around New York in 1987. Hide Caption 11 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump stands in the atrium of the Trump Tower. Hide Caption 12 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump attends the opening of his new Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, in 1989. Hide Caption 13 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve." Hide Caption 14 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump and singer Michael Jackson pose for a photo before traveling to visit Ryan White, a young child with AIDS, in 1990. Hide Caption 15 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999 and had one daughter together, Tiffany. Hide Caption 16 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump putts a golf ball in his New York office in 1998. Hide Caption 17 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Tower in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice." Hide Caption 18 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004. Hide Caption 19 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump attends a news conference in 2005 that announced the establishment of Trump University. From 2005 until it closed in 2010, Trump University had about 10,000 people sign up for a program that promised success in real estate. Three separate lawsuits -- two class-action suits filed in California and one filed by New York's attorney general -- argued that the program was mired in fraud and deception. Trump's camp rejected the suits' claims as "baseless." And Trump has charged that the New York case against him is politically motivated. Hide Caption 20 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005. Hide Caption 21 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon. Hide Caption 22 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007. Hide Caption 23 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Jr. and Ivanka -- in 2009. Hide Caption 24 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump had been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996. Hide Caption 25 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise In 2012, Trump announces his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Hide Caption 26 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012. It was shortly before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa. Hide Caption 27 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump appears on stage with singer Nick Jonas and television personality Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant. Hide Caption 28 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise In June 2015, during a speech from Trump Tower, Trump announced that he was running for President. He said he would give up "The Apprentice" to run. Hide Caption 29 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May. Hide Caption 30 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April. Hide Caption 31 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race. Hide Caption 32 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, accepting the party's nomination for President. "I have had a truly great life in business," he said. "But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country -- to go to work for you. It's time to deliver a victory for the American people." Hide Caption 33 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump faces Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate, which took place in Hempstead, New York, in September. Hide Caption 34 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump apologizes in a video, posted to his Twitter account in October, for vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks he made a decade ago regarding women. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize," Trump said, referring to lewd comments he made during a previously unaired taping of "Access Hollywood." Multiple Republican leaders rescinded their endorsements of Trump after the footage was released. Hide Caption 35 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump walks on stage with his family after he was declared the election winner on November 9. "Ours was not a campaign, but rather, an incredible and great movement," he told his supporters in New York. Hide Caption 36 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump is joined by his family as he is sworn in as President on January 20. Hide Caption 37 of 37

While the Trump campaign plans to share all its data with the RNC -- a coup for Chairman Reince Priebus -- state Republican operatives say there is little evidence that the Trump campaign has been using its primary data to follow up with people who attended their rallies and usher them into the RNC apparatus as potential volunteers.

Headed into this week's convention, there have been signs of progress. The Trump campaign announced a rapid-response director (a position that existed in virtually every other Republican primary campaign). It also hired a surrogate director, who can help amplify the candidate's message, rather than relying on Trump supporters who appear on television on his behalf, but often seem out of the loop on day-to day strategy.

The official roll out of 13 battleground state directors and advisers is a sign that the Trump campaign's struggles to recruit and hire staff are beginning to ease now under the more streamlined political operation of Jim Murphy and Paul Manafort.

The team includes: Arizona State Director Brian Seitchik; Colorado State Director Patrick Davis, a veteran strategist who has worked on many state races; Florida State Director Jennifer Locetta, who served as the statewide data director for the Florida GOP in 2012; Nevada State Director Charles Munoz, who organized voters in Nevada for Americans for Prosperity last cycle; Ohio State Director Bob Paduchik, who ran Rob Portman's campaign for Senate in 2010 and was state director for George W. Bush; and Pennsylvania State Director Ted Christian, who served in the Bush White House and ran Pennsylvania for the McCain-Palin ticket.

Helping to guide the political team are two veteran GOP operatives: strategist David Urban, who was the chief of staff to former Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, and New Hampshire-based Mike Biundo, who advised the presidential campaigns of Santorum, Rand Paul and Mitt Romney.

Cash crunch and building fund

But big questions remain about the Trump campaign's fundraising efforts -- particularly its ability to reach small donors, a fundraising effort that has lagged far behind past GOP nominees at this juncture of the nominating process.

"He was behind from the second he became the presumptive nominee, because he didn't run a traditional campaign in the primary," said Ryan Williams, a GOP operative who was a spokesman for Mitt Romney in 2012. "There was no fundraising effort that was mining small dollar donors, getting their contact information, to go back at them in the general election."

Thus far, the Trump campaign has refused to discuss its small dollar fundraising effort, its direct mail strategy, or the pace at which they are knocking on doors and contacting voters by phone.

One way that the RNC is looking to stave off any cash crunch, CNN has learned: Using a pool of money intended for building renovations at political parties' Washington, D.C., headquarters to pay rent for headquarters in counties and states. A 2014 spending bill allowed political parties to collect about $100,000 a year for their segregable building fund, but since the legislation lists "headquarters" in the plural, Republicans believe that it offers an innovative and above-board way to stretch every dollar.

That means that Republicans wouldn't have to spend their precious swing-state budgets on building rents -- they could use their flush building bank accounts, and then spend their budgets on voter contact or television ads.

It is, nevertheless, controversial. Republican election lawyers expect it to be challenged, even if it is legally defensible as long as the staff working out of the offices are paid by the RNC and not by the Trump campaign.

"I do think the RNC or DNC could use their building funds to fund state party facilities," said Robert Kelner, a Republican election lawyer who has represented the RNC in the past. "There is very little law addressing permissible uses for the new building funds."

RNC amps up its ground game

While many are waiting to whether Trump can ramp up his fundraising to pay for a larger battleground operation, the RNC is far ahead of where they were four years ago.

In June 2012, the RNC had 170 paid staffers in target states; this June they had 483. That has increased their ability to identify voters via door knocks, which are the most reliable form of identifying voters.

"The RNC has built the most efficient and effective ground game in the party's history," said RNC spokeswoman Lindsay Walters. "We are focused on the entire ticket, working to get all Republicans on the ballot elected to office."

Walters pointed to the nearly 500 paid staffers, 3,500 trained organizers and thousands of volunteers in the field. "In total we have over 775 total staff dedicated to beating Hillary Clinton," she said. "No other campaign, committee, or organization has been doing this for as long as we have. We are the infrastructure for the entire GOP ticket. And the Trump campaign has embraced that."