Mom-of-five’s clever strategy saw millions vote for Trump and she knew they’d won before polls opened
The scale of Donald Trump’s election win was a jaw dropping in surprise to many across America on November 5.
But not for Ashley Hayek, the executive director of America First Works (AFW), a pro-Trump non-profit, who accuses the ‘establishment media’ of ‘gaslighting’ voters with talk of a tight race.
Hayek says the early vote tallies suggested Republican women were showing up while their Democratic counterparts were not, and that all swing states were winnable.
‘We felt very confident,’ she told DailyMail.com this week, while she was visiting Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida, for an annual AFW event.
‘It was no surprise when we saw the numbers.’
Ashley Hayek is a political strategist who juggled the election with caring for five children
Ashley Hayek, 40, the executive director of America First Works
Ashley Hayek is married to Brian Hayek, a marine, and has four children, aged between two and 13.
In the end, Trump won the electoral college by a thumping 86-vote margin, swept all seven battleground states, and made consequential gains in blue cities and suburbs and among Latino and black voters.
Hayek, 40, is now viewed as a likely hire for the incoming Trump administration.
The mom-of-five comes from Clovis, in central California, and studied political science at the University of California, San Diego, before launching her first company, a political fundraising firm, in that city when she was 22.
She says she gets face-time with the former president ‘every few months’ and counts his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, as her ‘closest relationship’ in his family.
She’s also on first-name terms with Kimberly Guilfoyle, 55, the glamorous fiancée of Donald Trump Jr, who was previously a Fox News host and married to California Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, she says.
While celebrating the election win this week, she posted on Instagram the ‘iconic moment’ of seeing Trump and his government efficiency tsar, Elon Musk, sing God Bless America together on stage at an event.
The wife of US marine Brian Hayek operated under-the-radar in the 2024 race.
Though not a member of Trump’s formal campaign team, her methods for tracking down hard-to-reach voters and links with dozens of allied groups is credited with driving up turnout in the swing states where it mattered.
AFW’s 3,500 paid door-to-door canvassers turned up at doorsteps some 5.7 million times across Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and other swing states, as some 29 million campaign text messages bombarded cell phones, she says.
‘Our priority was to turn out people who did not vote in 2020, or people who vote in one in every four elections,’ she says.
She says the ground game was ‘pretty phenomenal’ and, though a conventional campaign in many respects, was at times willing to try ‘unconventional’ approaches to track down ‘low propensity’ voters.
Hayek counts Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, as her ‘closest relationship’ in the president-elect’s family.
Hayek says the grueling campaign left her without a good night’s sleep for six months.
‘I feel passionate about moving forward the America First agenda,’ says Ashley Hayek.
Ashley Hayek coordinates with canvassers in Michigan, where Arab Americans helped turn the state red.
Canvassing teams usually start work after Labor Day, says Hayek. AFW, however, was knocking on doors in June.
If voters needed help getting to a polling station, a rideshare service was arranged.
Planners also took a new approach to campaign text messages, which have become a nuisance for swing state residents, who complain of their cell phones pinging incessantly with spam in election years.
When SMS recipients complained, their reply was routed to a human volunteer, who would then strike up a chat with the voter, says Hayek: ‘They were blown away that someone actually read their message.’
Impressive wins in such blue strongholds as Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Saginaw, Michigan, were aided by local recruits knocking on doors and helping Trump bag a combined 34 electoral college votes, says Hayek.
She credits a dedicated ‘team of 20 Arab American canvassers’ for helping to flip Dearborn, Michigan, to Trump, where pro-Palestinian voters were angry over the Biden administration’s support for Israel.
Hayek also lauds cooperation among scores of like-minded organizations for rallying specific groups of voters, such as Moms for Liberty, the Association of Mature American Citizens, and Hunter Nation, for gun enthusiasts.
Women were a secret weapon in getting Trump back in the White House, she adds.
The Democrats believed women would rally behind them in support of access to abortions. Instead, says Hayek, they ‘stayed home’ and conservative women turned out in force to keep trans women out of women’s bathrooms and sports teams.
She spoke with DailyMail.com this week as Trump named his picks for key posts, including Florida senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and House firebrand Elise Stefanik as his UN ambassador.
Hayek says she’s following the rush of nominations, but that she is ‘not really thinking about’ what role she may play in the Trump administration. Still, she does not rule out joining his team.
‘I have five kids, ages 13 to two. I had to put my kids in private school … because of the woke agenda from the radical left being shoved down our family’s throats, especially in a state like Virginia,’ she says.
‘My role, whether it’s at AFW, or anywhere else: I feel passionate about moving forward the America First agenda and supporting this new administration as much as we possibly can.’
