NEWTOWN – A busload of Monmouth County GOP volunteers showed up over here this morning to enhance the get-out-the-vote effort on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

On the second to last Sunday before Election Day, many engaged partisans from different states – but especially across-the-river New Jerseyans – descended on Pennsylvania, a battleground coveted by both Trump and his rival, Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

“Make America sparkle again,” beamed Deborah Yanna of Iowa, a Top Trump Volunteer in her home state and in the nation, sporting a sparkling jacket she made in honor of her presidential candidate.

Yanna dashed around Trump headquarters where campaign workers processed New Jersey Republicans and dispatched them to a neighborhood in the Yardley area.

Kush Desai, communications director for the campaign here in Pennsylvania pushed back on the argument that Democrats have a better ground game.

“There has been a lot of discussion about how Kamala Harris has so many offices and paid staff but if I go out and knock on the doors of a million people who are already voting for Donald Trump and you knock on 50 doors of people who haven’t made up their minds, you’re going to move the needle more than I am,” Desai told InsiderNJ. “Our ground game is focused on those low propensity voters. It’s a little more tailored to those people we have to focus on the closing days.”

Emerson College Polling/RealClearPennsylvania polling this past week showed 49% of Keystone State voters supporting former President Trump, while 48% support Vice President Kamala Harris for president in 2024. Three percent are undecided. With undecided voters’ support accounted for, overall, 51% support Trump and 49% support Harris.

What’s the argument to those undecided voters?

“Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” he said. “You’re paying more for a gallon of gas or a gallon of milk than during the four years when Donald Trump was president. Obviously, the economy and inflation are universal but in certain areas – like Philadelphia, for example – we’re talking about crime, or the fentanyl crisis.”

Retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, Trump’s former chief-of-staff – said in an interview last week that Trump meets the definition of a fascist.

“For one we’re not talking about a hypothetical Trump presidency, and so people know the level of prosperity the country experienced,” Desai said. “You can get former Republicans who have an ax to grind but voters care less about a fired Trump official than the cost of groceries or the Middle East being a dumpster fire right now. There is a clear choice here. Across the board, we’re seeing a lot of energy and a lot of enthusiasm both from people from Pennsylvania and coming in to help. We’re going to every nook and cranny of the state.”

Again, though, Democrats like their operations advantage. From The Hill:

The Harris campaign touts its robust operation: 2,505 staff and 358 offices across the battleground states, numbers they say far surpass Trump’s operations there. (A) Harris aide said they believe their path to victory is in mobilizing significant turnout in not only traditionally blue areas but also cutting into Trump’s margins in rural, traditionally red areas. About one-third of the campaign’s Pennsylvania offices, for example, are in predominantly rural counties that Trump carried by double-digits during the 2020 presidential race, the aide said. “In an election this close, closing the margins in these red counties could be the difference maker,” the aide said.

Desai reasserted his belief that Trump operations will not only have a strategic edge, but momentum based on real numbers.

“There are so many stories about more paid staff and offices but look at voter registration trends [wherein the advantage of Democrats to Republicans fell from 630,000 in 2021 to 300,000 in 2024], and while Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton had six or seven-point leads in Pennsylvania, the best she [Harris] had has been plus three or four,” said the Trump Campaign Spokesman. “For all their staffed offices, we haven’t seen any tangible results.”

Just as the Monmouth GOP hit the doors of undecided voters, Monmouth Democrats debussed in the vicinity, as the New Jersey occupation of this battleground state intensified with time ticking down to Nov. 5th.

In the end, one sign glibly tried to push back against the 11th hour arm-twisting onslaught: