an in depth look at the people and events that shape our community.this is iowa in focus.this week -- we dig deep into the campaigns being run by both major political parties.and meet the group trying to change democratic voter turnout -- from outside any specific campaign. welcome to iowa in focus -- we're giving context to what happens in the headlines and on the campaign trail.this week, we're just it a little bit differently. instead of running through what happened during the week -- we're going to take a much deeper look at the type of campaigning we see at all different levels. senator ted cruz took his first trip to iowa in april 2015 -- officially kicking off the presidential primary season.that was also about the time that both major political parties were starting their ground games to support their eventual nominees.less than three months from the november election -- both major party's

picking up on it too. too.the wall street journal just posted a scathing editorial about donald trump saying: "he also thinks the crowds at his campaign rallies are a substitute for the lack of a field organization and digital turnout strategy. and he thinks that twitter and social media can make up for being outspent $100 million to zero in battleground states.. states..before that -- the associated press pointed out that the roaring ground game the national was pushing in iowa hadn't gotten off the ground as quickly as they had hoped. hoped.today -- we dig into some of the huge differences in those ground game -- in a story you'll see only on iowa in focus. focus. this kind of room -- filled with volunteers and their cell phones -- represents one of the most basic parts of campaigning -- for any

pretty strong base of support for hillary.troy price is a senior political advisor for the hillary clinton campaign and says on the democratic side -- they've built a juggernaut.in the caucus season -- it was powerful enough to hold off a surging bernie sanders campaign -- even if just by a hair in iowa. iowa.we had one of the best if not the best ground game the caucuses have ever seennow -- iowa democratic party regional organizing director sylvia yacoub says after democratic efforts spread to other states through the primaries -- they're kicking back into gear in the hawkeye state for the genral election. election.and basically, because we built such a strong foundation, we're just coming back and tapping into that foundation of volunteers and supporters who are just as excited to jump back in, make those phone calls and knock those doors.the state democratic party is opening up a few more offices at the end of the summer -- bringing the total to 24 -- ranging from sioux city to clinton -- big cities like des moines to smaller communities like waukee.that means democratic

calls and knocking on doors all over the state -- and for a candidate like clinton -- it means high powered surrogates. former candidates like howard dean and tom vilsack -- celebrities like actress lena dunham and current senators like michigan's debbie stabenow are all coming through iowa.senator stabenow says that doesn't happen for tr. trump.basically he doesn't have people out speaking for him because they don't want to be identified with his name calling, hate and fear mongering.that's senator we ?don't see many surrogates coming through for republicans. the republican party so far has stuck to scheduling more appearances from trump and pence themselves.both troy price and donald trump's iowa state director eric branstad agree that democrats and republicans have always run different styles of campaigns. while democrats promote their 24 offices -- republicans talk about how they started working for 2016 right after the 2012 l.

has always been on the 72 hour get out the vote effort. pushing people in that final 72 hours to get out and vote on election day. that playbook has changed. 2016 brings new challenges. trump won a long and ugly primary -- driving the republican party of iowa to hold "united gop" rallies -- letting republican party of iowa chair jeff kaufmann all in for trump. trump.this is not a metaphor, i mean this to be taken literally.. the republican part of iowa is going to put together the largest ground game in iowa history for republicans this year and that's anyway you count it up the g-o-p says they have 50- times the staff compared to the race that mitt romney lost -- but didn't give me specific numbers about offices or volunteers. i have seen passion and energy

the massive crowds trump is drawing all around the country are bringing in people who are not normally involved in the process.these volunteers are signing up people to vote at a democratic event -- but in cedar rapids -- we found republican workers doing the same thing. thing.they are registering to vote again or they are signing up for an absentee ballot request. those are voters we need and those are voters that are going to make the difference in november. that means having staff at events from the state party -- the r-n-c and the trump team making sure that those people will be ?allowed to vote -- now that they're motivated to. to.a lot of folks said listen, i haven't voted since 1984 for ronald reagan. some people, i've never voted before, we're bringing in an entire new group of people. it's exciting as a long-time republican to see this party

bring back and bring new voters to the party. it is truely amazing. the big indicator has always been fundraising. fundraising.the most recent numbers we have say that hillary clinton has rasied amore than 2-hundred and 60 million dollars -- and donald trump has raised just a little less than 90-million.there's a big difference in how much they've spent on t-v ads -- that's just another exampl how the trump campaign -- until now -- has been unorthodo. unorthodox.eric branstad says leading up to november -- plenty of money will go towards seeing those ads on t-v. let's go inside iowa politics -- to talk about the people not trying to move into the white house. the race for iowa's first district congressal seat is a priority win to both political parties.republican rod blum won the seat after democrat bruce braley left it to run

follow one group could soon be knocking on your door -- if they haven't already -- doing everything they can to get democrats to the polls. polls. door knocking nat natdhuha tawil's work with the peace corps took her to places where frustration with political candidates was ?not something you could easily voice.tawil biteit made her passionate about voting -- and drove her to work for the progressive turnout project. alex morgan is the national and he's based out of cedar rap. rapids.we're trying to really engage with voters multiple times throughout the election cycle to talk to voters about voting in general and why they vote when they do.they're a super pac -- but aren't looking to donate money to candidates -- they're trying to push democratic voters to the polls.it doesn't work in every race -- but morgan says over the last few elections -- there have been roughly 60 seats in the house of

about five points. points.wo when we know that a field effort can boost by 8 percentage points -- those are the types of districts we want to be active in because we know we can make the difference on election day. that's what brings them to iowa's first district. democratic challenger monica vernon has a lot of money -- and support in the district -- and from groups like the democratic congressional campaign committee -- who's put blum's seat near the top of their list to take back in turnout pac's tactics is getting iowa secretary of state paul pate's attention. nat pop montage opening letter right around the primaries -- turnout sent out these letters to voters in the first district -- saying who you vote for is secret -- but ?if you vote is public record. record.yeah, that type of lanauge, talking about the social aspect, to a certain extent, can really motivate

you're going to watch them makes it some element of a shame approach. they think it works, they keep doing ita recent study found that it does actually work.it looks at an august 2006 primary election in michgan where a control group voted at about 30-percent but -- voters who got mailers pointing out how it was their civic d likely to head to the polls being told someone would be checking to see if they voted drove them out more -- as did being shown their own voting record or the voting record of their neighbor's they all voted at higher rates.at higher rates.the study found that kind of outreach was more effective than live phone calls -- and nearly as effective as door knocking. knocking.secretary pate says he doesn't like it -- believing that language could lead some voters to feel

people in an authentic way and not fire them up with false information leading up to the iowa caucus -- the ted cruz campaign got a lot of negative attention for their mailer that was so aggressive -- much of it was factually inaccurate.both turnout and secretary pate say that kind of outreach is out of line after the break...we spent a lot mo secretary of state paul pate about what he think's campaign

welcome back to iowa in focus, this week we're talking with sec of state paul pate about voter shaming. what is it?

it's an unfortunate situation when a campaing or superpac tries to put out a mailer or commercial to imply you're not doing your civic duty. they'll dsay you get a bad grade or compare you to your neighbors with a list of you've done a back job and we're watching you. you.one fo the most nortorious ones was cruz's before the caucus. caucus.that one was clear to me because it cited my office. it said we monitored caucuses

people to vote and it's important but we dont' monitor and we're not their parents. parents.how do you walk it back? back?you can't find them all. the campaigns have to monitor. i would like to think that they'll think longer before they do it. but when they're independent, it's hard to push them back. they're not even local. local.on primary day, rep. steve king took a picture

what's how is that indiciative of a bigger tr? trend? steve king is a situation where he was voting for himself. he would outside the voting booth so he was within the letter of the law. but social media out there and we're dealing with selfies. they're posting that they voted and who they voted for. my job is to be the guardian. we want to encourage participation but we don't want to create a situation that isn't on the up and up.

line?it isn't bright and clear. that's why we have myself who have to do some interpretting. a lot of it is common sense. if we see then stepping over it, we have to remind them to step back. it's like being the doorkeeper at the hottest spot in town. to participate, but we don't want it to be where you're undooly influencing others. coming up next...we bring in one of our political science experts to look at the nature of the 2016 presidential

earleywine: when legislators fail to invest in education here, it affects all of us in here. without adequate funding, districts are forced to make cuts that could leave our students with obsolete technology, eliminate advanced science classes, or cut funding for the fundamentals, b equipment, leading to overcrowded classrooms, making it harder to learn. our students deserve better. it's time for iowa legislators

earlier -- we talked about that wall street journal editorial that was critical of donald trump.the worst part might have been the final paragraph.they write: write:"if they -- meaning trump's advisors -- can't get mr. trump to change his act by labor day, the gop will have no choice but to write off the nominee as hopeless and focus on salvaging the senate and house and other down-ballot rac. races.as for mr. trump, he needs to stop blaming everyone else and decide if he wants to to be president-or turn the nomination over to mike pence." pence."after the wall street journal wrote that -- donald trump distanced himself from the few advisors who were trying to rein him in -- and instead -- got closer to the ones who were more likely to let him just be himself.so we sat down with hans hassell from cornell college -- to talk about how 2016 -- and donald trump -- has completely turned presidential politics on its head. head. he's famous outside of

attention to poltiics. it's soft news. there was this big debate ten years about of the debate of soft news in terms of dumbing down politics. one side says if you cover soft news, that you dumb down what that you dumb down what know and they're less informed. on the other hand, you bring more people in who pay attention. president obama fills out an ncaa bracket and gets people who watch espn who watch espn interested in policy. there's more attention because this news can sell

been criticized for focusing on soft news. the media says all the rallies are soft news. do candidates play into that? that?ideally, a candidate wants rallies to generate news coverage. they often generate coverage at a local level but there's not really any news on a national level. some reporters say they can recite a candidates script after a few

rallies from a national perspective are much more about soft news. trump has made controversial statements and draws more atten. attenion.what's the impact on trump? the percpetion is reckless.that sends a clear message that he's off the cuff, or that he's not p-c and doesn't care what other poeple think and for some that's attractive. he's going to do

good aspects of his personality and some that are troubling that reveal his views that are unacceptable. unacceptable.does it work to hillary's advantage beacuse she gets to take off her campaign hat and put on that policy-maker hat to defend hers. herself.if you look at teh congressional hearings she had, it was successful for fundraising. it created a republicans vs. democrats, they're out to get us. if you

fundraisers, they're negative and idealogical based. this played perfectly into that. getting out the vote is very positive. they're different messages they're trying to send. that early on was helpful it let her raise money and highlight news in a combative terms that is very good for fundraising. before we go -- some historical and political themed events in iowa city you

you can flo

twitter and facebook all week long.see our interviews as we do them -- chime in with what you think -- send us your favorite pictures from events you go to. every week we'll end with the week ahead... ahead...it's a chance for you to see what's going on around y. you.friday -- film scene in iowa city is featuring historic and political pictures taken by ted polumbaum then s ernst is introducing kris "tanto" paronto -- he was one of the men portrayed in the movie "13 hours" -- about the battle of benghazi.he speaks sunday at the wilton community center. thanks for watchingbe sure to tune in next week to get the clear facts on iowa in focus.