Donald Trump is taking a page from Barack Obama's brilliant 2008 campaign playbook

(Image credit: Charlie Leight/Getty Images)

published 13 August 2015

If you are inclined to believe that Donald Trump's campaign for president is some meta-reality television show, think again: The Donald is rolling out an impressive ground game in Iowa, whose caucuses in February will be the first presidential primary contest in the nation, reports The Washington Post. As a member of Rick Perry's Iowa team tells the Post, "I see [Trump's campaign] as a major threat to all the other campaigns because of the aggressiveness of their ground game."

The Post notes that Trump is building a large field organization and that his Iowa campaign director, Chuck Laudner, helped lead Rick Santorum to victory there in 2012. But perhaps the most interesting aspect of Trump's strategy comes straight from Barack Obama's successful insurgent campaign in 2008, which involved expanding the pool of voters to include those who hadn't caucused before:

Turnout in Iowa caucuses is historically low. In 2012, only 121,000 of the state's roughly 600,000 registered Republican voters participated. In 2016, strategists expect turnout to increase to 140,000 or higher..."We're reaching people that the Republican apparatus doesn't even know exist," Laudner said. “The other day, one woman came up to say, 'Hello, a lifelong Iowan.' Her first question to us was, 'What's a caucus?' After we told her, she wanted to help." [The Washington Post]

Trump is dominating the field in Iowa, according to the latest CNN/ORC poll. He will visit the state this weekend.