The conservative groups “are fully funded and ready for hand-to-hand combat,” said Steve Rosenthal, a Democratic organizer.
Rosenthal co-founded the Atlas Project, which is tracking voter statistics and other data to guide Democratic groups as they design precinct-level voter-outreach strategies. He describes the Obama operation as “second to none,” but in reviewing data in recent weeks, he has grown alarmed by what he views as a successful years-long campaign on the right that could alter the landscape.
In Florida, for example, Republican legislation, since overturned in the courts, effectively dampened pro-Democratic voter registration efforts during critical months in 2011 and 2012, resulting in registration gains for Republicans in the crucial Tampa Bay area since the 2008 election.
In Ohio, the evangelical group behind a successful anti-same-sex-marriage amendment that helped mobilize conservative voters in 2004 says it has a network of 10,000 churches and a database of millions of rural voters who will be targeted with in-person visits and voter guides. And in Wisconsin, a traditionally Democratic state, conservatives have built a house-by-house turnout machine already tested in the successful campaign to fight a union-backed recall of GOP Gov. Scott Walker in June.
Several recent stumbles by Romney have provoked a stream of media coverage about his chances in November and Obama’s widening lead in recent polls. But on the ground, the battle remains close. Experts say that if Obama’s lead in key states extends beyond a few percentage points, even the most effective field operation on the right may not be enough to prevent a Romney loss. But, they say, the operation can add two to three points to the Republican’s total and, in a close contest, that could be a significant difference.
Obama aides insist that the president’s grass-roots network will be more effective in driving voters to the polls than anything being built on the right, although they acknowledge that the landscape has changed since Obama’s last campaign.
“It’s a much more robust field operation than the 2008 McCain campaign had, that’s clear,” said Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager. But, he added, “the other side is trying to pay to replicate what we spent years to build.”
One of the major players on the right is Americans for Prosperity, a group co-founded by conservative billionaire David Koch. The group plans to spend $125 million on the 2012 campaign, half of it devoted to field organizing in political battlegrounds. AFP has 116 staff members on the ground targeting 9 million voters the group has found to be “up in the air” about how to assess Obama’s economic record, said its president, Tim Phillips.
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