Josh Marshall has made the point that the media and GOP pundits tend to oversell the ground game thing. They argue that Trump's poll numbers may be a pure phantom as he may not have a ground game.
"Is "Great Ground Game" the New Unskewed Polling?"
"During the daily punishment of listening to Fox News everyday, I just heard a segment on the Republican primary. The gist was that people in the know are saying that this year "a great ground game" is more important than its even been before. And it may count for a lot more than great poll numbers this time around."
"Let me cut to the chase. No, it's not. It's definitely not. As I mentioned late last year, 'ground game' - organizational structure on the ground in a certain area to turn out voters on election day - is very important. But it's only important in terms of relatively small margins. Maybe you're polling at 40% and your amazing ground game got you to 43%. Maybe Trump is at 35% and Cruz is at 29% and Cruz's amazing ground operation gets it to a tie. Caucuses are sort of an exception. Since it involves going and sitting around in a school gymnasium or similar place for several hours one night. But, if you're getting killed in the polls, your ground game is definitely not going to help you in a primary."
"But when I heard that the poster boy for the "great ground game" was Chris Christie, I started to realize that maybe this is the "unskewed polls" of the 2016 cycle, only this time it's not to sustain the fantasy that Romney is definitely absolutely going to win. It's an intra-Republican mode of denial to make you believe that Donald Trump is not only not winning the primary race as of now but dominating the race like no non-incumbent has in modern history."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/is-great-ground-game-the-new-unskewed-polling
"Is "Great Ground Game" the New Unskewed Polling?"
"During the daily punishment of listening to Fox News everyday, I just heard a segment on the Republican primary. The gist was that people in the know are saying that this year "a great ground game" is more important than its even been before. And it may count for a lot more than great poll numbers this time around."
"Let me cut to the chase. No, it's not. It's definitely not. As I mentioned late last year, 'ground game' - organizational structure on the ground in a certain area to turn out voters on election day - is very important. But it's only important in terms of relatively small margins. Maybe you're polling at 40% and your amazing ground game got you to 43%. Maybe Trump is at 35% and Cruz is at 29% and Cruz's amazing ground operation gets it to a tie. Caucuses are sort of an exception. Since it involves going and sitting around in a school gymnasium or similar place for several hours one night. But, if you're getting killed in the polls, your ground game is definitely not going to help you in a primary."
"But when I heard that the poster boy for the "great ground game" was Chris Christie, I started to realize that maybe this is the "unskewed polls" of the 2016 cycle, only this time it's not to sustain the fantasy that Romney is definitely absolutely going to win. It's an intra-Republican mode of denial to make you believe that Donald Trump is not only not winning the primary race as of now but dominating the race like no non-incumbent has in modern history."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/is-great-ground-game-the-new-unskewed-polling
Yet, I don't think we should wholly dismiss Chris Christie's ground game. Ok, we can dismiss it relative to Trump as currently Trump is at 29.4 percent in the RCP averages in NH with Christie in NH. So Christie's great ground game won't help him via Trump.
Incidentally, Trump may well have a better ground game than he is widely given credit for. It has been recently noted that he's doing a much better job than is appreciated in terms of data retention-I even related how I myself bought a few Trump shirts and hats a few months ago and then received a very personalized Christmas card from Donald J. Trump.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/trump-builds-data-juggernaut-217391
But that is neither here nor there. Even if Christie's got the best ground game he can't use it to bridge an almost 20 point divide as Josh rightly argues.
But Christie's superior ground game certainly could bridge the divide with Marco Rubio whose ground game has widely been reported as subpar. In the RCP average, Rubio is at 13.4 percent to Christie's 10 percent.
So it's quite possible that if Christie's ground game is as good as advertised he can use it to bridge the divide of under 3 and a half points.
And it's quite plausible. We do know that Rubio has lagged in his campaigning in both Iowa and NH while Christie has been lights out in NH-and has recently been in Iowa as well. Christie isn't expected to do well in Iowa.
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