Trump is opening a new field office in must-win Florida.
The facility, on South Orange Boulevard, is the first of twenty-four planned over the next 14 days as the campaign works to grow their presence in the Sunshine State.
“We’re about expanding our base and growing our outreach,” Karen Giorno, a Trump adviser told Bloomberg.
The new field office, inserted between a tattoo parlor and a cell phone accessory shop, was empty and locked Friday. Trump posters are fastened to the windowpanes and seats are neatly organized between packs of bottled water and snack chips heaped on a table.
Located across the street from the now notorious Pulse Nightclub, visitors to the field office are reminded of one of the country’s worst mass shooting in history, a tragedy that set off a hail storm of renewed political debates regarding gun control. Anyone at the door of the soon-to-be-opened campaign office, can observe a constant barrage of mourners visiting the closed night club all day and night.
Giorno is heading up the team signing up “super-volunteers”. The volunteers are the door knockers who help enroll voters and ask them to cast their vote for the Republican nominee.
Giorno points to the latest volunteers as a marker of growing strength for Trump’s campaign in Florida. Everyone is welcome.
Deborah Cox-Roush, a former Marco Rubio backer and Vivi Ramos, a Hispanic activist who had supported Jeb Bush, are both building on Hispanic outreach ventures in the state as they work for Trump’s success. “We have an open access strategy,” said Giorno.
Clinton, who established 14 offices in the state, intends to add more. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, she is up by five-percent as her campaign has spent over $40 million in Florida so far.
One problem for the Trump organization: As Clinton edges out in front in the surveys of other battleground states, Florida grows less important. Looking at an uphill struggle, Trump is clinging to what served him.
“His rallies will remain the staple, but they are not all we have,” said Giorno. “The assemblies allow a person with his status to do a more conventional kind of direct politicking. It’s the equivalent of 40,000 door-knockers.”
On Thursday, Trump held four events in Florida. Each targeted a different constituency — center-right Republicans, law enforcement, religious conservatives as well as the rank-and-file.
“The surveys are closing. They’re getting a bit agitated with the hundreds of millions they’ve spent on advertisements,” Trump told several hundred house contractors assembled for their conference at the Fountainbleau Hotel in Miami Beach.
Trump reassured the developers he has plenty of time to accomplish his magic. “I haven’t started yet,” he said. “Remember I won the primary by a landslide”.