I'm not criticizing anyone with this question. I would just like to understand.
“Can someone tell us exactly WHAT is the “ground game”?”
I’m from Washington state and got a couple of emails from Cruz people to attend my precinct caucus. Another freeper said he got a phone call reminding him to go. (He changed his other plans and went).
That is what the “ground game” is. Emails, phone-calls, door-to-door neighborhood walks (hence the term “ground”).
That ground game by Cruz is probably what got me and that other freeper to our different precinct and district caucuses with about 90% of the folks being elected to the state convention as Cruz delegates.
No arm twisting, no nothing. Just sit down, hear some speeches, and then vote for the delegates. At my caucus, 27 delegates were elected by about 200 people. Most of the folks voting were just interested voters. I’m guessing about 30% of the delegates were newbies, like myself.
Perhaps at this late stage it’s enough you know that Cruz fielded thousands of volunteers across the country to campaign for him, set up headquarters to operate from and they organized from there......Trump did rallies and TV Interviews/media and did very little to organize anyone on the ground (grassroots) to assist.
ou need a ground game, and Cruz and other candidates have always done so....Trump chose to operate his campaign non-traditional and now it’s biting him in the rear....
The delegates actually will often times try to get committee members and those attending caucuses and conventions to vote for them...some are more aggressive then others.
You really need to invest a bit of your tie to search the web on the electoral college and about delegates.....actually about how our elections work.
It’s people as yourself, who do not understand this process ...that make it so complicated for things to work as they need to work. People have to explain, and explain and explain.....
I'll assume that you are sincere in your question and not being deliberately obtuse. In that vein, I will try to answer you.
What many people, including apparently many on this forum, fail to realize is that in most cases, when you vote in a primary or caucus, that while you are voting for delegates to be bound to your candidate for a specified number of ballots, you are not actually voting for the delegate. The people filling the delegate spots are selected at another time. And you are not voting for a Trump supporter to be in that spot - you are voting for the person in that spot to be required to vote for Trump on the first ballot.
Now, as a candidate, if you want the people selected to be the delegates that are bound to you to be loyal to you after they are unbound, you have more work to do. You need to have your supporters attend their precinct caucuses and get elected as delegates to their county caucuses; and then they have to attend the county caucuses, and get selected as delegates to your state convention; and then they have to go to the state convention, and there have to be enough of your supporters as delegates to the state convention to outvote the supporters of the other candidate in order to have your supporters selected as the delegate to the national convention.
Now all of this takes a tremendous amount of effort and organization by the campaign, and a large group of enthusiastic and loyal supporters willing to show up at every stage of the process. The campaign has to know when and where the caucuses and conventions are; needs to have the list of its preferred delegates, and make sure that their supporters have the list and know whom to vote for; they may even need to provide transportation, assist with registration fees, etc. And they need to do that at every stage of the process. THAT is what a ground game is.
Cruz isn't winning these delegate spots by converting Trump supporters, or by bribing, blackmailing or coercing anyone. He is doing it by being organized and out working every other campaign.
Nobody is "stealing" Trump delegates - all of the delegates that are bound to Trump will vote for him on as many ballots as they are required. That is ALL he earned by winning the delegates in the primary or caucus. Anything beyond that, he has to work hard to get his own supporters into those spots - he can't just demand that they be placed there. The system doesn't work that way. If Trump can't figure that out - he will lose.
Traditionally, ground game has referred to direct get out the vote efforts, that involve direct personal interaction with individual voters - things like door to door or direct phone calls to potential voters to sway them to support your candidate. On election day, it includes efforts to prod and encourage sympathetic voters to actually get out and vote. Sometimes that includes providing transportation to supporters who have no means to get to the polls.
Those are all legitimate efforts. What the anti-Trumpers are trying to do is use the term ground game which applies to these legitimate activities, to include the bribery and intimidation and outright exclusion of Trump supporters from the selection process that was used in Colorado to deliver Cruz a clean sweep of the Colorado delegates.
So they’re playing games with language, by applying the term ground game to their illegitimate activities to try and legitimize them.