Republicans believe they have found an electoral edge in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that’s if they actually get people to the ballot box.
A turnout effort from the political action fund associated with the United States Concealed Carry Association is targeting gun owners who are not registered to vote. USCCA has over 850,000 members, 70,000 of which live in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin.
“We are looking at a replay of 2016 or 2020 where, essentially, 40 to 70,000 votes in the swing states decided who the president of the United States was,” Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist, told NOTUS. “When you’re fighting for inches on the electoral map, the more of these folks you turn out to vote, the better off it is for Donald Trump.”
USCCA doesn’t have specific data that shows how many of its members are not registered to vote. But surveys about nonvoting gun owners have convinced the organization that a considerable number of its members are likely not registered to vote. The campaign includes emails, events and ads, pointing members to an online voter-registration tool that ultimately redirects users to their state’s voter-information website.
“It’s ultimately an opportunity to engage the hundreds of thousands of responsible gun owners across the country ahead of the November elections, both current USCCA members and other gun owners across the country,” said Katie Pointer Baney, executive director of the USCCA-FLS Action Fund.
The effort has caught the attention of the Trump campaign. Pointer Baney sat down with Trump campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita at the Republican National Convention and spoke about voter turnout among gun owners.
“I’m always amazed at the amount of people that I know, that I’m close with, that are hunters that don’t vote,” LaCivita said at the event. “I’m like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’”
Turnout efforts like the USCCA’s, though not grand on the surface, “absolutely” could impact the presidential election, especially in the battleground states, according to veteran GOP strategist Eric Tanenblatt. Trump lost Pennsylvania by 81,660 votes in 2020 and Wisconsin by 20,682.
“So the key is to identify who your voters are and get them out to the polls,” Tanenblatt told NOTUS. “One of the ways to motivate people to get out to the polls is to talk to them about issues that are priority issues for voters.”
“The Second Amendment tends to be one of those real motivating issues” for low-propensity voters, he added.
Since launching the online voter-registration tool on July 31, the USCCA site has received roughly 18,000 engagements.
“Every vote counts in places like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where these are must-win states for both Trump and Harris,” said GOP strategist Ron Bonjean. “It’s likely that the USCCA registration efforts could help Republicans drive up the numbers in these states since its membership has more GOP-leaning voters than Democrats.”
A recent survey from grassroots conservative organization Vote4America found more than 10 million gun owners and hunters are not registered to vote and that more than 500,000 gun owners are unregistered to vote in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Gun owners voted for Trump over Joe Biden 2-to-1 in 2020, according to AP VoteCast. With Kamala Harris atop the Democratic ticket, Democrats have been making a concerted effort to court voters around gun reforms, particularly with Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, who introduced himself as a hunter and outdoorsman.
Harris led the White House’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention. During the final night of the Democratic National Convention, gun safety activists Gabby Giffords and Rep. Lucy McBath took the stage to advocate for more comprehensive gun regulations, including universal background checks and a ban on assault-style firearms.
Pointer Baney stressed that USCCA’s efforts don’t advocate for a specific candidate.
“We believe that gun owners are smart, and they’re going to make that decision for themselves,” Pointer Baney said. “They’re going to understand that the Second Amendment is on the ballot, not just at the top of the ticket, but also in their state and local elections. And so they have an obligation, I think, to engage in the process and hopefully turn out in record numbers this cycle.”
The USCCA-FLS Action Fund isn’t the only pro-gun group working to get gun owners registered. The National Shooting Sports Foundation has its own turnout effort and voter hub, providing information on the candidates and believing gun owners will choose what’s best for their gun rights.
“It’s a pretty stark difference in what’s being offered between these two candidates for the White House,” Mark Oliva, NSSF’s managing director of public affairs, told NOTUS. “And I think that that difference could be what motivates some people who may have decided that they weren’t going to participate in this election, that they need to go exercise their rights to vote and cast their ballots — make their voices heard.”
Pro-gun groups are far from the only issue-oriented organizations hoping to tilt the election’s outcome. Strategists also pointed to other issues, like abortion and veterans’ rights, that could galvanize voters.
“Is that going to be the determining factor of an election? I don’t know,” Brittany Martinez, a GOP strategist, said. “But if there’s all these groups that are doing work around topics they’re passionate about, I think that does eventually move the needle.”
At the RNC, LaCivita put it bluntly.
“The world is controlled by those who show up,” he said to Pointer Baney. “And if you don’t vote, in my world, you don’t matter.”
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Ben T.N. Mause is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.