Transcripts For KFXA Iowa In Focus 20160828

Campaigns in iowa are looking very different. The media is picking up on it too. Too. The wall street journal just posted a scathing editorial about donald trump saying he also thinks the crowds at his Campaign Rallies are a substitute for the lack of a Field Organization and digital turnout strategy. And he thinks that twitter and social media can make up for being outspent 100 million to zero in battleground states. States. Before that the Associated Press pointed that the roaring ground game the National Republican party was pushing in iowa hadnt gotten off the ground as quickly as they had hoped. Hoped. Today we dig into some of the huge differences in those ground game in a story youll see only on iowa in focus. Focus. This kind of room filled with volunteers and their cell phones represents one of campaigning for any political party. Party. Its about relationship building. We already have a pretty strong base of support for hillary. Troy price is a senior political advisor for the Hillary Clinton campaign and says on the democratic side theyve built a juggernaut. In the caucus season it was powerful enough to hold off a surging Bernie Sanders Campaign Even if just by a hair in iowa. Iowa. We had one of the best if not the best ground game the caucuses have ever seennow Iowa Democratic Party Regional organizing director Sylvia Yacoub says after democratic through the primaries theyre kicking back into gear in the Hawkeye State for the genral election. Election. And basically, because we built such a strong foundation, were just coming back and tapping into that foundation of volunteers and supporters who are just as excited to jump back in, make those phone calls and knock those doors. The state Democratic Party is opening up a few more offices at the end of the summer bringing the total to 24 ranging from sioux city to clinton big cities like des moines to smaller communities like Party Volunteers making phone calls and knocking on doors all over the state and for a candidate like clinton it means high powered surrogates. Former candidates like howard dean and tom vilsack celebrities like Actress Lena Dunham and current senators like michigans Debbie Stabenow are all coming through iowa. Senator stabenow says that doesnt happen for tr. Trump. Basically he doesnt have people out speaking for him because they dont want to be identified with his name calling, hate and fear stabenows perspective but we . Dont see many surrogates coming through for republicans. The Republican Party so far has stuck to scheduling more appearances from trump and pence themselves. Both troy price and Donald Trumps iowa state director Eric Branstad agree that democrats and republicans have always run different styles of campaigns. While democrats promote their 24 offices republicans talk about how they started working loss. The republican playbook, going backto 2004, the focus has always been on the 72 hour get out the vote effort. Pushing people in that final 72 hours to get out and vote on election day. That playbook has changed. 2016 brings new challenges. Trump won a long and ugly primary driving the Republican Party of iowa to hold united gop letting Republican Party of iowa chair Jeff Kaufmann prove he and everyone else is all in for trump. Trump. This is not a metaphor, i mean this to be taken literally. The republican part of iowa is going to put together the largest ground game in iowa history for republicans this year and thats anyway you count it up the gop says they have 50 times the staff compared to the race that mitt romney lost but didnt give me specific like i have never seen before the massive crowds trump is drawing all around the country are bringing in people who are not normally involved in the process. These volunteers are signing up people to vote at a democratic event but in cedar rapids we found republican workers doing the same thing. Thing. They are registering to vote again or they are signing up for an absentee ballot request. Those are voters we ne are going to make the difference in november. That means having staff at events from the state party the rnc and the trump team making sure that those people will be . Allowed to vote now that theyre motivated to. To. A lot of folks said listen, i havent voted since 1984 for ronald reagan. Some people, ive never voted before, were bringing in an entire new group of people. Its exciting as a longtime republican to see this party bring back and bring new voters to the party. It is truely amazing. The big indicator has always been fundraising. Fundraising. The most recent numbers we have say that Hillary Clinton has rasied amore than 2hundred and 60 Million Dollars and donald trump has raised just a little less than 90million. Theres a big difference in how much theyve spent on tv ads thats just another example of how the Trump Campaign until now has been unorthodo. Unorthodox. Eric branstad says leading up to november plenty of money will go towards seeing those ads on tv. Lets go inside iowa politics to talk about the people not trying to move into the white house. The race for iowas First District congressal seat is a priority win to both political parties. Republican rod blum won the seat after democrat for the senate. Now we follow one group could soon be knocking on your door if they havent already doing everything they can to get democrats to the polls. Polls. Door knocking nat natdhuha tawils work with the peace corps took her to places where frustration with political candidates was . Not something you could easily voice. Tawil biteit made her passionate about voting and drove her to work for alex morgan is the National Field and training director and hes based out of cedar rap. Rapids. Were trying to really engage with voters multiple times throughout the election cycle to talk to voters about voting in general and why they vote when they do. Theyre a super pac but arent looking to donate money to candidates theyre trying to push democratic voters to the polls. It doesnt work in every race but morgan says over the last few elections seats in the house of representatives won or lost by about five points. Points. Wo when we know that a field effort can boost by 8 Percentage Points those are the types of districts we want to be active in because we know we can make the difference on election day. Thats what brings them to iowas First District. Democratic challenger Monica Vernon has a lot of money and support in the district and from groups like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ho of their list to take back in november. Nat popbut one of the turnout pacs tactics is getting iowa secretary of state paul pates attention. Nat pop montage opening letter right around the primaries turnout sent out these letters to voters in the First District saying who you vote for is secret but . If you vote is public record. Record. Yeah, that type of lanauge, talking about the social aspect, to a certain people to vote voteits a fine line. Saying youre going to watch them makes it some element of a shame approach. They think it works, they keep doing ita recent study found that it does actually work. It looks at an august 2006 primary election in michgan where a control group voted at about 30percent but voters who got pointing out how it was their civic duty to vote were more likely to head to the polls being told someone would be checking to see if they voted drove them out more as did being shown their own voting record or the voting record of their neighbors they all voted at higher rates. At higher rates. The study found that kind of outreach was more effective than live phone calls and nearly as effective as door knocking. Knocking. Secretary pate says he doesnt like it harrassed but the numbers dont lie. Lie. Were trying to motivate people in an authentic way and not fire them up with false information leading up to the iowa caucus the Ted Cruz Campaign got a lot of negative attention for their mailer that was so aggressive much of it was factually inaccurate. Both turnout and secretary pate say that kind of outreach is out of line after the break. We spent a lot more time with iowas secretary of state paul pate about what he thinks Campaign Welcome back to iowa in focus, this week were talking with sec of state paul pate about voter shaming. What is it . Its an unfortunate situation when a campaing or superpac tries to put out a mailer or commercial to imply youre not doing your civic duty. Theyll dsay you get a bad grade or compare you to your names. They tell you youve done a back job and were watching you. You. One fo the most nortorious ones was cruzs before the caucus. Caucus. That one was clear to me because it cited my office. It said we monitored caucuses people to vote and its important but we dont monitor and were not their parents. Parents. How do you walk it back . Back . You cant find them all. The campaigns have to i would like to think that with some of the pushback, theyll think longer before they do it. But when theyre independent, its hard to push them back. Theyre not steve king took a picture showing a marked ballot. Whats how is that indiciative of a bigger tr . Trend . Steve king is a situation where he was voting for himself. He would outside the voting booth so he was within the letter of the law. But social media out there and were dealing with selfies. Theyre posting that they voted and who they voted for. My job is to be the guardian. We want to encourage participation but we dont want to create a situation up. Where do you draw that line . Line . It isnt bright and clear. Thats why we have myself who have to do some interpretting. A lot of it is common sense. If we see then stepping over it, we have to remind them to step back. Its like being the the hottest spot in town. We want you to participate, but we dont want it to be where youre undooly influencing others. Coming up next. We bring in one of our Political Science experts to look at the nature of the 2016 president ial earlier we talked about that wall street journal editorial that was critical of donald trump. The worst part might have been the final paragraph. They write write if they meaning trumps advisors cant get mr. Trump to change his act by labor day, the gop will have no choice but to write off the nominee as hopeless and focus on salvaging the senate and house and other downballot rac. Races. As for mr. Trump, he needs to stop blaming else and decide if he wants to behave like someone who wants to be president or turn the nomination over to mike pence. Pence. After the wall street journal wrote that donald trump distanced himself from the few advisors who were trying to rein him in and instead got closer to the ones who were more likely to let him just be himself. So we sat down with hans hassell from Cornell College to talk about how 2016 and donald trump has completely turned president ial politics hes famous outside of politics and so he brings more attention to poltiics. Its soft news. There was this big debate ten years about of the debate of soft news in terms of dumbing down politics. One side says if you cover soft news, that you dumb down what that you db know and theyre less informed. On the other hand, you bring more people in who pay attention. President obama fills out an ncaa bracket and gets people who watch espn who watch espn news can sell sellthe media has been criticized for focusing on soft news. The media says all the rallies are soft news. Do candidates play into that . Ideally, a candidate wants rallies to generate news coverage. They often generate coverage at a local level but theres not really any news on a national level. Some reporters rallies. Rallies from a National Perspective are much more about soft news. Trump has made controversial statements and draws more atten. Attenion. Whats the impact on trump . The reckless. That sends a clear message that hes off the cuff, or that hes not pc and doesnt care what other poeple think and for some thats what he wants to do. There are good aspects of his personality and some that are troubling that reveal his views that are unacceptable. Unacceptable. Does it work to hillarys she gets to take off her campaign hat and put on that policymaker hat to defend hers. Herself. If you look at teh congressional hearings she had, it was successful for fundraising. It created a republicans vs. Democrats, theyre out to get us. If you fundraisers, theyre negative and idealogical based. This played perfectly into that. Getting out the vote is very positive. Theyre different messages theyre trying to send. That early on was it let her raise money and highlight news in a combative terms that is very good for fundraising. Before we go some historical and political themed events in iowa city you you can follow along on twitter and facebook all week long. See our interviews as we do them chime in with what you think send us your favorite pictures from events you go to. Every week well end with the week ahead. Ahead. Its a chance for you to see whats going on around y. You. Friday film scene in iowa city is featuring historic and political pictures taken by Ted Polumbaum then sunday senator joni ernst is introducing kris tanto paronto he was one of the men portrayed in the movie 13 hours about the battle of benghazi. He speaks sunday at the Wilton Community center. Thanks for watchingbe sure to tune in next week to get the woman the following is a paid presentation for the nuwave precision induction cooktop, brought to you by the makers of the numberoneselling nuwave oven. Announcer when you turn on your cooktop, do you really know what the temperature is . No youre just guessing. 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