The conventional wisdom has long held that a high turnout helps Democratic presidential candidates win the White House.
No more, says leading Trump ally Charlie Kirk, who heads Turning Point USA, and who is leading the charge to find the 'low-propensity' voters he believes will propel the former president back to power.
A string of polls shows Trump making gains among young, Black and Hispanic voters, groups that have historically turned out in lower numbers than other demographics.
So when thousands of conservatives gathered in Detroit, Michigan, for Turning Point Action's People'sCongress, the exhibitors hall was filled with booths dedicated to voter registration drives and grassroots efforts to turn 'maybes' into 'definites'.
Workshops with titles such as 'The first seven seconds—how to execute your initial contact' and 'Lead your precinct, lead your country,' were packed.
Charlie Kirk, head of Turning Point Action, with Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, on stage in Detroit, Michigan
The big draw will be Trump himself on Saturday evening.
But the theme of the three-day gathering is finding the votes that will return Trump to power, said Kirk. And that means 'low propensity voters.'
'It is tempting and easy to say he's gonna fight for me ... he will, but first you must fight for him. You must go register new voters,' he told several thousand supporters in a noisy, firework-filled opening address that shook the conference hall.
'You must find low-propensity voters in your life and get them registered to vote.
'According to new polling, people least likely to vote are the most pro-Trump in this election.
'That means if we don't do a good job of driving turnout, if we don't do a good job of owning our neighbourhoods, if we don't do a good job of registering new voters. I say in November, we might hear those bitter words ... thatJoe Bidenis reelected for another term as president of the United States.'
A CNN analysis of three NBC polls found that Biden is up by four points among people who voted in 2020 and the 2022 midterms.
But Trump led by 12 points among people who voted in 2020 but not 2022.
Trump's lead extends to a whopping 20 points among those who voted in neither election and almost two thirds of those people said they had a negative view of Biden's performance as president.
Robert Broderick and Rachel dance before the start of the conservative Turning Point Action's the People's Convention at Huntington Place, Detroit, Michigan
Donald Trump is due to address the convention on Saturday. He is seen here at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix, Arizona, earlier this month
It made for an odd dynamic at a gathering often known as much for the rowdy antics of its young attendees and the fiery rhetoric of speakers as its political strategizing.
So although fans crowded around a gold Mercedes for photos, and potential VP pick Vivek Ramaswami raced on stage with whoops of 'USA, USA, USA,' the buzz phrase of the weekend was the decidedly academic expression 'low-propensity voters.'
'They're maybe not registered to vote or maybe they are registered to vote, but they're a little harder to mobilize. They're what we call low-propensity voters,' said Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, as she described the launch of Trump Force 47 as a community effort to drive turnout.
Grant Raphael is at the sharp end of the push, as a regional organizer for BLEXIT, a group that encourages Black people to leave the Democratic Party.
He was manning the group's stall, filled with 'Empower, Awaken' t-shirts and 'Blessed not oppressed' banners, on Friday evening in the exhibitors' hall.
Minorities, he said, were tiring of being told they were victims and were embracing Trump's message that they could be 'victors' if they embraced his message of working hard and looking after their families.
Gideon Raphael, BLEXIT's regional manager for the south-east, said many people didn't even realize how easy it was to register and to take part in elections
Kirk:'You must find low-propensity voters in your life and get them registered to vote'
'People have this mindset that Democrats are all for the minority community,' he said. 'But when you look at the policies and how things are going for African-Americans and other minorities ... it hasn't gotten any better in the past four years.
'So people are starting to wake up and see that Donald Trump, even though he's this white male conservative, is actually more for them than say, Joe Biden.'
He said his mission included explaining how easy it was to register to vote, with just a few clicks on an app, in an effort to turn 'low-propensity voters' into dead cert Trump voters in November.
In such a tight race, turnout could deliver victory to Biden or Trump, according to James Johnson, cofounder of polling firm J.L. Partners.
'Generally speaking Trump has the bigger challenge—and the opportunity for a bigger prize—on his hands as his voters do tend to be lower propensity,' he said.
'But on the contrary if Trump holds his 2020 vote and Biden goes backwards by not turning out African-American voters then he is in serious trouble.
'In that scenario, and the one the polls currently bear out, Trump could win just by standing still.'
