An unorthodox, largely outsourced Trump turnout machine will compete with a large, well-funded Democratic field operation headed by people who have experience with the mechanics of winning elections.

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With the polls showing a tight race both nationally and in the battleground states, it’s a fight that could determine the outcome. Political strategists in both parties think a quality ground game could be worth at least 1 point. Trump leads by 0.1 in the national RealClearPolitics polling average, with a tiny 0.3-point edge in the possibly pivotal state of Pennsylvania.

Harris has largely inherited her get-out-the-vote operation from President Joe Biden. The perceived superiority of his ground game was one of the last hopes Democrats had about the 81-year-old incumbent being able to claw his way to a second term after the disastrous June 27 debate.

Since the candidate switch-out, Harris has improved the Democrats’ standing. But her best path to 270 electoral votes still runs through the “blue wall” states of the Rust Belt. She is polling better than Biden in the Sun Belt states but is still behind Trump in most, and possibly all, of them.

The Democrats’ best hope may be that Trump’s minuscule battleground state leads will collapse on contact with the fearsome Harris turnout machine. In many of these battlegrounds, Democrats also have better-functioning state party machines. One GOP lawmaker told the Washington Examiner that there are certain advantages to being able to turn out big, blue cities.

But Republicans have improved in early voting in most competitive states compared to 2020, when Biden won, and 2022, when Democrats exceeded expectations in the midterm elections and kept GOP gains to a minimum. In Nevada, the one battleground state Trump did not carry in 2016 or 2020, Republicans jumped out to an initial lead in early voting. Former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina called the numbers “scary” in an interview with former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki on MSNBC.

This suggests either that the Republican get-out-the-vote effort is more sophisticated than it superficially appears or that there is sufficient organic grassroots enthusiasm to make up any difference. The early voting results also mean that Democrats will need a bluer Election Day in many states than in the recent past. Trump supporters voted heavily on Election Day in 2020.

Musk’s super PAC and Kirk’s conservative activist group are relatively new to the presidential campaign turnout game. Yet the Trump campaign has largely outsourced its efforts in this crucial area to such friendly outside organizations. And it is heavily targeting low-propensity voters. This has led to months of grumbling by Republican strategists who worry that the Trump camp’s “silver bullet to capture key battleground states” will result in them “firing blanks” instead.

There have also been concerns that there is too much of an emphasis on election integrity in response to the 2020 results rather than turning out voters this year. Nevertheless, most view this as the best-run of the three Trump presidential campaigns, the first of which delivered one of the biggest upset victories in U.S. history.

Democratic turnout efforts are helmed by longtime campaign professionals with significant experience in organizing and getting voters to the polls. Even this hasn’t gone without hiccups, however. Politico reported last month on problems within the Harris team in Pennsylvania, with local Democrats already preemptively pointing fingers at one another.

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Some early voting trends have signaled low black voter turnout, which could doom Harris in a close race. Her team will try to increase this community’s participation on Election Day or try to compensate with bigger numbers among college-educated whites. The latter scenario looks more promising to Democrats after this weekend’s shock Des Moines Register poll showing Harris ahead of Trump in Iowa, a Midwestern state with few minorities that wasn’t believed to be in play at all.

This is where the Harris and former Biden team is really supposed to make its money, in a get-out-the-vote competition with relative neophytes on the Republican side. For its part, the Trump campaign has been able to keep up with the Harris juggernaut so far, despite the Democrats’ staffing and fundraising advantages. We’ll see whether they can do so again when it matters most.