by Doug Wead
THE GREAT WISCONSIN RAID
When Eric Trump gave me the tour of Trump Tower, he started on the fourteenth floor, where much of the action had taken place.
“This is the Turnberry Conference Room,” he said, showing me an empty, clean, carpeted room with windows looking out over New York City. The Trumps loved the name Turnberry. They had a mansion and a golf course with the same name, as well as conference rooms at other locations around the world.
“Right on this wall,” Eric said, “was an easel, and there was a two-by-four paper. I remember Brad and Jared were here with me. We were about three weeks out. That’s when the critical decision was made about Wisconsin and Michigan.”
Brad Parscale was the Trump 2016 campaign’s digital media director. At six eight, he is a giant of a man, with a beard that makes him even more imposing. Brad is a maestro with numbers. He and his staff were the ones who found the Trump supporters on social media and who helped determine where the candidate should go to have a successful rally. Working directly with Jared Kushner and sometimes with Eric Trump, Brad helped identify the right people for the RNC voter turnout programs. If Hillary Clinton had Silicon Valley, including Eric Schmidt, the former chairman of Google, as her digital director, Trump had Jared Kushner and Brad Parscale. It was Brad’s data modeling that first alerted the campaign to the possibilities in Wisconsin.
Eric was describing to me the background on what had been a daring political move, a raid behind enemy lines. Michigan had voted for the Democratic nominee in six straight presidential elections, and no Republican presidential candidate had taken Wisconsin since 1984, when Ronald Reagan carried every state in the union except Minnesota, his Democratic opponent’s home state.
Jared Kushner’s confrontational moment with Reince Priebus over RNC money would have a profound impact on the campaign. First, it would free up money that the campaign spenders in that fateful Turnberry Conference Room would be able to assign. And equally important, it would signal to the Republican field that the party and the nominee were finally wedded. It was okay for establishment Republicans to support the New York outsider Donald Trump. The RNC was finally on board.
“We had about ninety-three percent of the Republican voters,” Jared remembers. “But the seven percent, more establishment Republicans could have cost us dearly. We needed them too. It could have been the difference in many of the most contested Midwestern states.”
Jared Kushner had been working on Wisconsin for months. “After my father-in-law won the nomination, I went down to Washington to be with Paul Ryan’s team.” Ryan was the Republican Speaker of the House, and he was from Wisconsin.
“We were trying to figure out how to mend fences with the Republican leaders and the nominee,” said Jared Kushner. “I’m always inclined to make peace and try to figure out how to build bridges. How do we move people forward?
“So I met with his team. Actually we met in a law firm and I said, ‘Guys, so I know we weren’t your first choice.’”
Laughter.
“I know we weren’t your sixteenth choice!”
Even more laughter.
“But in the end you’ll be very happy with us because, first of all, the nominee agrees with Paul on a lot of issues. Not every issue, but a lot of issues. But most of all, you will be happy when you see that he is probably the only person in the Republican field who can beat Hillary Clinton. And if he does get elected, you will find that he has the ability to be one of the most transformational political leaders you could have in the White House.
“And they were all looking at me like I was crazy. You could see it on their faces. Basically, it was, ‘Man, I can’t believe we’re stuck with these idiots.’
“But we kept going forward, and I think we kept proving people wrong.”
Getting Paul Ryan to campaign in Wisconsin was critical to pulling off an upset in that state.
“We kept trying to make it work, but he wouldn’t do it. Again, we were talking about a small percentage of Republican establishment voters, but if you are going to pull off an upset, you need everybody. The problem was the establishment didn’t think we would win anywhere, so why worry about Wisconsin?
“All the big donors were calling Paul Ryan and driving him crazy. He really felt like we were going to get wiped out. Finally, he agreed to do a rally with us, but in the end we couldn’t get there. So we set it up with Mike Pence. It was just a couple of days before the election, but it was actually quite helpful in bringing the party together and especially helping us in Wisconsin.”
At the meeting in the Turnberry room, a few weeks before the election, there was a discussion about where their remaining resources would go, including the money from the RNC. Senior members of the Trump campaign were all there, including Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, David Bossie, and Nick Ayers. Brad Parscale explained that there were now sixteen states that were the key to the election. “And we only have enough money to compete in five of them. We have to decide.”2
No one would decide. “They kept saying we need to get Trump to write out another check for $100 million,” Parscale remembered. “They kept saying we need to compete in them all.”
“And I said, ‘It ain’t gonna happen.’
“And so we were stuck.” Finally, they all left the room, leaving Brad Parscale and Nick Ayers alone. “Nick, I’m just going to pick ’em,” Parscale said.
Ayers shot back, “I think you’re the only one who knows about this anyway.”3
Brad checked with Eric Trump and Jared Kushner and then made the decision. He took the campaign money allocated for other places, including Virginia, painful as it was, and put it in Wisconsin and Michigan. Everybody else on staff was focused on what they would say on their next segment on Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. “I had to make a decision,” Parscale said. “Afterwards, I told Eric and Jared what I had done.” Jared had been working on a Wisconsin surprise since the Republican National Convention. He took no persuading. It was one of the most decisive strategic decisions in the 2016 presidential election.
Donald Trump Jr., the hottest surrogate in the campaign, practically lived in Wisconsin the last two weeks of the campaign. That made a difference.
The Clinton campaign did not know about the last-minute transfer of resources, but they were aware of Donald Trump Jr.’s forays into the state. It was dismissed as a fool’s errand and raised no alarm. “Professional politicians were chuckling, some openly mocking Trump. Amateur hour. One pundit called the Trump campaign guilty of political malpractice.”4 On October 31, 2016, the New Yorker ran a story titled “Why Is Donald Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin?” It was such a puzzle.5
WE CAN WIN THIS THING
The Thursday before the election, Brad Parscale was showing numbers that Donald Trump would win the election, and he had the data to prove it. Brad was using a model that had Trump supporters showing up at the polls in greater numbers than Republicans had in previous elections. More important, he was showing numbers of voters who had not voted before at all. Ever. These “ghost voters” were not picked up by traditional pollsters, they were on no one’s lists, but Brad’s surveys showed that they were beginning to represent significant numbers.
Deputy campaign manager David Bossie and campaign spokesman Jason Miller were sufficiently impressed that they took Brad on a little media tour. They encountered the same reaction that Eric Trump had experienced at ABC. This time, Parscale was trying to convince executives and producers at NBC, FOX, and CBS. He laid out his case, with explanations about why his early turnout numbers provided a better model. Parscale insisted that Trump was going to win 306 electoral votes. The executives and anchors at CBS broke into laughter.
Brad Parscale persisted right up to Election Day. That morning, he showed the numbers again to Eric Trump. “This is over,” Parscale explained, showing color-coded Excel pages. “Look. See this data right here? Statistically, they can’t catch up with us now. Even if we don’t win Michigan and Wisconsin, look, it�
�s no longer a question of if we are going to win or not, but rather by how much.” But most, even inside the Trump campaign, did not believe him.
Katrina Pierson, the Trump campaign’s national spokesperson, was one who did. But she was perplexed. “There were staffers who had this look on their faces, like what they were seeing on TV was true. Like, he wasn’t going to win, and he’s down ten points in the polls. I felt like I was the only one who knew he was going to win. I said to myself, ‘Am I in a bubble? Because it doesn’t seem like anybody is as confident as I am.’”6
The mood in the situation room at Trump Tower had been mixed. Some were excitedly exchanging theories based on early numbers, both positive and negative; others were too exhausted to care anymore. As long as people remained active, they maintained hope.
“You lose yourself in your work,” Ivanka said.
But those whose work was winding down, and surrogates who no longer had radio and television segments to do, found themselves growing more somber.
PLANNING TRUMP’S CONCESSION CALL
Donald Trump Jr. appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America early on Election Day. George Stephanopoulos said, “The polls show you behind right now, what are you looking for—for hope?”
Don was right on message. “So, I want everyone to turn out. People who have been let down by the system… I want them to vote. I want them to bring their friends. And we’ll see what happens.… So many people come up to us and they are screaming, ‘We love you, keep doing what you’re doing.’ And I’ve had just as many people come up to me and they say”—at this point, Don Jr. feigned a whisper—“‘We love you, keep doing what you’re doing.’
“They’ve been put in a box. Sometimes by the media. By a false narrative that’s been created out there. They can’t be as vocal supporting Trump. And it’s going to be interesting to see how that turns out.”7 He was referring to the silent voters that their numbers showed and that the networks weren’t buying.
Before noon on Election Day, Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, cast their votes at Public School 59 in Midtown Manhattan. Trump’s daughter Ivanka; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; and one of their children had been along. The scene was chaotic. Just before the Trump family arrived, police had escorted away two boisterous, barebreasted female1 Clinton supporters. They had painted obscenities on their chests.8
Inside the school a spectator yelled out, “Who’d you vote for?”
Trump smiled. “Tough decision,” he said.
While the Trump family voted inside, a new crowd of Clinton supporters had gathered to ambush them afterward. When the family emerged, the crowd booed and shouted profanities at Donald Trump and his grandchild. There were shouts of “New York hates you!”9 But the Trump motorcade was gone.
In the afternoon, when he was once again safely ensconced back at Trump Tower, the candidate moved all over his namesake building. He went to his office on the twenty-sixth floor to finish some last-minute get-out-the vote messages for social media. He was later spotted with staff on the eleventh floor and then in a little impromptu meeting with the data team on the fourth floor. Eventually, he would settle in a chair in the middle of the so-called war room on the unfinished fifth floor.
In the months leading up to the election, the “war room” had been used as a campaign headquarters. Throughout the afternoon and evening, staffers were coming and going, running errands, and setting up arrangements for the Trump Election Night celebration at the nearby Hilton Hotel—although, admittedly, most believed it would be a wake for a spirited but failed presidential bid. Still, at this hour, the campaign work was grinding on toward its climactic, inevitable conclusion. The polls would soon be closing across the country. The results would be out of their hands.
A block away, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and her team were operating out of the Peninsula Hotel. According to Clinton staff, it was “selected so she could personally see Trump Tower, home of the foe she was set to crush.”10
They had made sure that the suites, reserved for the Clintons and key staff, had walls of windows to look on as Trump Tower come tumbling down. They made sure that they had rented the rooftop. When victory came, when Hillary Clinton took the concession call from Donald J. Trump, she would be looking out across a lighted Manhattan skyline toward Trump Tower. She and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, would then ride to the massive, glass-covered Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, where a crowd of thousands would celebrate a unique and magical moment.
Near sunset, on Election Day, Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, called her Clinton counterpart, Robby Mook. The two had corresponded via email the day before. Mook had written, “It’s been a real pleasure. I was happy to be campaign managers together.”
He had then laid out a plan for Election Night beginning, diplomatically with the scenario of a Trump win. “Within 15 minutes of the AP [Associated Press] calling the race for Mr. Trump, Secretary Clinton will call him to congratulate him.” And then Mook had added the most likely outcome, “Within 15 minutes of the AP calling the race for Secretary Clinton, she will take to the stage and accept, so in other words, we hope to hear from Mr. Trump in that window.” If Donald Trump didn’t want to look like a sore loser, he had to pay attention to the election returns and call right on time. With or without his call, Secretary Clinton was taking that stage.
Kellyanne had read the email to Trump.
“Did you respond?” he had asked her.
“No,” she had answered, “I’m not going to respond. This is a good system, I’ll respond later or tomorrow. We have a lot going on.”11
And so tomorrow had finally come, and the call to Robby Mook could not be put off any longer. Kellyanne reached him and his latest instructions were clear. “Your point of contact is Huma Abedin,” he told her. It was Hillary Clinton’s closest aide and friend. It was said that when the Clintons moved into the White House, Huma Abedin would have her own bedroom in the family quarters.12 Mook gave Kellyanne Huma’s number. And so the two campaigns were now connected. If Trump had to concede, he would call Huma, and she would hand the phone to Hillary.
At the tower, as Donald Trump and his family came out of an elevator, they encountered John Fredericks, a conservative radio host. Ivanka had appreciated his on-air support and had gotten him into the building that night. He was interviewing everybody he could find.
“Fredericks!” Trump shouted in surprise.
“Hey, Mr. Trump! You’re going to win, you know that, right?”
Trump smiled back, “From your lips to God’s ears, John.”13
When Trump met with his diversity coalition and was asked about being nervous, he replied, “Look, what do I have to lose? I’m gambling with house money. You know what I mean? If I win, great, I want to win. If I lose, what’s my default position? The CEO of Trump International.”14
WHO TOLD TRUMP HE HAD LOST THE ELECTION?
At 5:01 p.m., Trump’s deputy campaign manager, David Bossie, got a phone call from an old friend, Chris Vlasto of ABC News. Vlasto had information about the early exit poll data coming from the Associated Press. This was supposedly the real stuff. This would tell the tale.15
In earlier times, the television networks had their own competitive Election Night polling operations. It was prestigious for a network to call a state early, before a competitor. In more modern times, the networks had pooled their resources and relied on the same common data. Using the AP exit polls as a base number, they then employed their own in-house analysts to work on specific precincts to get a jump in reporting. The point was, the base numbers for all the networks were really the same.
Vlasto had bad news for the Trump campaign. The worst.
Clinton was going to win and win big. There was no doubt.
More information followed as the news spread across New York City, the communications capital of the world. There had been meetings at the various television networks, the Trump team would learn, where the on-air anchor
s and senior producers had been called in and told that Hillary Clinton would be the winner. They were to develop language and themes to capture the historic moment as it was reported later in the day. Producers began to choreograph their evening shows. Artists were told to begin deciding on the final images and fonts they would be using on air that evening. Calls were made to some key television network board members and even some prominent network television advertisers. The nation’s elite was now being given the advance word. It was done. Hillary Clinton would win.
In my interviews with the president and the Trump family, one point of confusion had to be cleared up. On election night, who had told the candidate that it was over, that he had lost?
At a December 2016 victory rally in Wisconsin, the president-elect told bits and pieces of his Election Night experience. He told the audience that his own daughter, Ivanka, had passed on to him the bad news.
“So it began with phony exit polls,” Donald Trump remembered, later, recounting the story himself. “And I got a call from my daughter at about five o’clock, and she was called by people in their business, and her husband, Jared—great guy—he was called. Then they called me and they said, ‘I’m sorry, Dad. It looks really bad. Looks really, really bad.’
“So, I sort of thought I lost, and I was okay with that. I wouldn’t say great. In fact, I called my vice president and I said, ‘It’s not looking good. Not looking good.’”16
Trump later told the Fox News anchor Chris Wallace that going into Election Night, after his people had read the exit polls, they too thought he was going to lose. “That was just the accepted wisdom.”17
As Donald Trump told the story, “So now the polls just closed, and they start announcing numbers, and I say, ‘Oh, this is going to be embarrassing.’ I’m trying to figure out what am I going to do. And I have this ballroom that’s not that big because I didn’t know if I was going to win or lose.”18