On March 16th, President Trump issued his social distancing guidelines. It sent shockwaves through the country. The instructions changed how retail business would be conducted and resulted in a ripple of similar announcements and declarations from cities and states.  Notably, within 24 hours of the President’s social distancing announcement, the Republican National Committee had digitized its entire field program.

The RNC’s entire field operation now runs online. Last Saturday, Trump Victory held its fourth National Day of Action (NDOA) for 2020. That day volunteers made 1.4 Million total voter contacts in a single day. The National Day of Action was 100% virtual. 100% of calls were done from the comfort of homes using an online application for volunteers called Trump Talk. The calls highlighted President Trump and his administration’s effort to combat the coronavirus, but also encouraged voters to visit the CDC website to follow their guidance to stay safe. The calls included scripts that support the whole GOP ticket, not just the President. The Trump talk application is easy to use and popular. The RNC says they have seen almost 50,000 signups on Trump Talk in the past week. Here in Iowa there have been nearly 240,000 voter contacts this cycle plus over 300 training events.

A Virtual National Week of Training preceded the National Day of Action.  During that week, hundreds of Trump Victory Leadership Initiative (TVLI) trainings were held in a virtual setting like Zoom or Google hangouts to train volunteers on in-home call applications and ways to continue to engage with voters, all virtually.  TVLI trainings are the RNC’s signature training program, designed to facilitate rapid volunteer growth and focus on spreading the campaign’s and the Party’s message to every community across the country. TVLI is this culmination of years of the RNC’s Victory efforts and technology pooled into one place. It is the training vehicle for not only volunteers but staff too.

Republican leaders realized early that they needed to move quickly to adapt to the new situation. Leaders and staffers were quick to point out that while the Republicans reacted, the democrats dithered. Joe Biden, the likely Democratic nominee for President, had a much rougher time getting online, as the tweets below showcase.

Biden: I’m at home […] it took about four days to be able to have the power and the capacity to set up in my recreation room where I’m sitting now.

— Brittany L. Shepherd (@brittanys) March 25, 2020

With their immense financial resources and quick action at the start of the pandemic, the Republican National Committee is in a great position to continue to engage voters, especially online. The RNC and Trump Campaign have already trained and engaged over 550,000 volunteers. Each of those volunteers is working to re-elect President Trump and Republicans down the ballot.

“The RNC’s ability to digitize its entire field operation within 24 hours is a testament to the strength of its permanent ground game. While we continue to outmatch the Democrats in resources and fundraising, our ability to organize our army of volunteers no matter the situation will propel us to victory,” said RNC Spokesperson Preya Samsundar