CHRIS CRUCIAL: This headline should scare *every* Republican 😱

PLUS: Nancy Mace! Barron Trump!

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1. A leaner, meaner machine?

This headline — via the Washington Post today — caught my eye:

Intrigued, I read on. And found this:

Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign called itself a “juggernaut” in May of that year, on par with a planet-destroying Death Star that was “firing on all cylinders.”

Trump’s 2024 campaign has traded Star Wars metaphors for talk of a “leaner” and “more efficient” operation, with less real estate, fewer employees and greater dependence on outside groups.

“We’re focused on quality over quantity. I mean, how novel a concept,” top strategist Chris LaCivita told the crowd of top donors May 4 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., according to attendees.

The shift comes as President Biden’s campaign and its allies, buoyed by incumbency, have been moving in the opposite direction, building a more expansive operation sooner than in 2020. Strategists for both major parties expect Democrats to raise and spend more than Republicans over the coming months, a dynamic that has been magnified by the significant legal costs Trump’s fundraising apparatus has absorbed to defend him in state and federal courts.

This, of course, sounds good! What company wouldn’t want to build a leaner, meaner operation? To learn from the bloat of the past and spend all of its money smarter and better?

But, here’s the thing: This is (almost always) a fantasy — at least in politics.

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Here’s why: The hardest thing in the world to do is to get people to actually turn out to vote. Building a voter identification and turnout operation costs HUGE sums of money. And is extremely laborious. But it is also how races — especially ones that are expected to be this close — are won and lost.

Consider the recent winning margins in the last two presidential elections in a handful of swing states:

WISCONSIN

2016: Trump 1,405,284 Clinton 1,382,536 MARGIN: 22,748 votes

2020: Biden 1,630,866 Trump 1,610,184 MARGIN: 20,682 votes

ARIZONA

2016: Trump 1,252,401 Clinton: 1,161,167 MARGIN: 91,234 votes

2020: Biden 1,672,143 Trump: 1,661,668 MARGIN:10,475 votes

MICHIGAN

2016: Trump 2,279,543 Clinton 2,268,839 MARGIN: 10,704 votes

2020: Biden 2,804,045 Trump 2,649,864 MARGIN: 155,000 votes

GEORGIA

2016: Trump 2,089,104 Clinton 1,877,963 MARGIN: 211,141 votes

2020: Biden 2,473,633 Trump 2,461,854 MARGIN: 11,779 votes

Like, I am no statistician but we are NOT talking about big margins here. Every vote will absolutely matter. And that’s where organizations — robust, well-funded ones — factor in. Bigly.

Now, I will say this: The 2020 Trump campaign, while an improvement on the 2016 Trump campaign, was not very good. The people at the top of this campaign — Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles — are proven political pros and actually know what they are doing.

But, that said, I struggle to see an example — in recent (or not even that recent) political history — of a campaign doing something as basic as building a voter turnout apparatus in a radically different way and it working.

The whole do-more-with-less thing is the mantra of those, well, with less. Winning campaigns, usually, do more with more.

2. Nancy Mace, call your office

South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace is a little all over the place.

Following the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, she told CNN: “Everything that [Trump’s] worked for … all of that, his entire legacy, was wiped out yesterday.”

Then, three years later, she endorsed Trump for president.

So…yeah. Not a great track record of reliability! But, even by those low standards, the interview Mace gave to Daily Mail is pretty, um, odd.

The Republican congresswoman fired or lost nine staffers from her Washington D.C. office in three months - and many of them trashed her to the media on the way out. 

Now, the South Carolina lawmaker has dramatically hit back and accused the former aides of sabotage in an extraordinary interview with DailyMail.com.

Mace, 46, says the departed staffers mismanaged $1million, hacked her phone, spied on medical records, and even submerged electronic devices in water and deleted files to cover their tracks.

The mother-of-two claims they even went as far snooping on her childrens' calendars and would monitor doctor appointments….

…'I knew that they were sabotaging the office for a while. I didn't know to the extent that they were doing it,' Mace told DailyMail.com in a sit-down interview at her Capitol Hill home.

I mean, I guess it’s possible her office was all plotting against her? But, I tend to think that isn’t the case. This quote — also in the Mail — makes much more sense to me:

The former [Mace] aide claimed that the 'submerged device' allegation stemmed from a staff member who dropped water on their computer and took it to the tech team. 'This wasn't espionage or something.'

Remember, politics — and Capitol Hill in particular — is more “Veep” than “West Wing.” Mace seems to think differently.

3. Barron Out

Well, that was fast.

Barron Trump, the youngest son of Donald Trump, will now not be a Florida delegate to the Republican National Convention this summer.

“While Barron is honored to have been chosen as a delegate by the Florida Republican Party, he regretfully declines to participate due to prior commitments,” the office of former First Lady Melania Trump said in a statement released Friday afternoon.

That announcement comes just days after the Florida Republican party announced that Barron — along with siblings Don Jr., Tiffany and Eric — would be Florida delegates to the convention.

Asked about his son’s role at the convention in an interview Thursday, the former president said: “He’s pretty young, I will say. He’s 17. But if they can do that, I’m all for it."

Barron Trump turned 18 in March.

Unlike some of his more high-profile siblings, Barron, the only child of the former president and Melania Trump, has stayed almost entirely out of the spotlight. The convention role was seen by some as a sort of political coming-out party for Barron, who graduates from high school in a week.

But it was not to be.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“Hakeem is a good man. We’ve worked well together. We have a lot more in common than people might think.” — House Speaker Mike Johnson on Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries

ONE GOOD CHART

Gallup looked at how many people express confidence in the sitting president to “do the right thing” for the economy. Joe Biden’s numbers are lower than all of them -- except for late in George W. Bush’s 2nd term.

SONG OF THE DAY

I mis Tom Petty. Steve Earle does too, apparently. On Friday, he released a terrific cover of Petty’s “Yer So Bad.” It’s part of a broader set of covers by country artists of Petty tunes.