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Cliff Maloney: “We looked at the numbers in 2020 when we didn't chase any ballots: Trump lost Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes. 120,000 Republicans had a ballot that was sitting on their table. Nobody ever talked to them, and they didn't send it back and they didn't vote.”
At the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference, we sat down with political strategist Cliff Maloney, CEO of Citizens Alliance and founder of The Pennsylvania Chase, to discuss the importance of “ballot chasing” in winning both local and federal elections.
In 2024, Maloney led an aggressive campaign to raise GOP mail-in ballot results for the presidential election in Pennsylvania.
“Democrats have both volunteer efforts and paid community organizers right at the door, knockers that chase the ballots, and it's such a difference, because you have that consistency. And so my question is always, if they're doing it, why aren't we? … there's some power to the door knocking. And then COVID really put us on the map, because all the rules were changed, and people realized: Wait a second, we can't spend all of our money on television ads. We have to compete there, but we have to put resources into these paid ground games the way the left does.”
How the PA Chase was organized: “Look, we thought if we knock 500,000 doors, we can increase Trump's share of the mail-in vote. So if you look at just mail in votes in Pennsylvania, in 2020 comparing Trump to Biden, Trump had roughly 20%, so we're down 60 points going into Election Day, roughly 20 to 80. We said: If we knock 500,000 doors, we think we can take that 20% to 33% against Harris. Well, with 33% we said we would win handedly, 30% was probably a win. But going from 20% to 33 you know, was going to be difficult… We hired 120 individuals full time September one through Election Day. They knock six days a week. No work on Sunday. They knock from 10am to seven pm every day. They get an hour for lunch, but it's a grind, right? It is not an easy job. And so we knocked 510,000 doors was our final number, and Trump ended up getting 34.5% of the mail in against Harris. So to us, it was a smashing success.”
CHAPTER TITLES
0:00:01 - Introduction to Ballot Chasing
0:01:31 - Types of Door-Knocking
0:04:09 - Implementing Ballot Chasing in Pennsylvania
0:09:59 - Expansion to Other Swing States
0:14:09 - The Importance of Local Elections
About future Ballot Chasing: “I mean, the big test now is 2025 you know, what does it look like? Right? People asking me, what's next? What are you guys doing? I have people in Virginia calling me. I have the governor's candidates in New Jersey. And look, we're going to look to help anywhere we can, but I'm doubling down on Pennsylvania.”
The focus on the election of Judges of Elections in 2025: “And you might say, well, why are you focusing on Judges of Elections? The Judge of Elections races in Pennsylvania, we're going to try to win 1000 of them. These are local races. They make the decisions about secure elections on Election Day. Whoever wins for each precinct this year will control the 2025 or excuse me, 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029 elections, the big ones being 26 and 28, thatt is kind of our method to get people excited about 2025.”
Maloney gives advice on how to get into politics: “If you're looking to get involved locally, don't spend time building a party. Don't spend time trying to get involved in a US Senate race. Find local candidates that represent your ideals, build them up, that'll build the party, that'll help up the ticket. But it's crazy. The amount of people that jump in and say, I'm gonna run for Congress say: Okay, do you have $5 million and do you have a year of your life you can take off without setting your family and businesses back? Focus on the race where you can raise $10,000, $20,000, $25,000 - be a viable candidate.”
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