Trump is lukewarm on early voting while national Republican leaders embrace it
Trump’s Mixed Signals on Early Voting
When it comes to early voting, former President Donald Trump is like a petulant child forced by a parent to apologize to a sibling after an argument. He’ll mouth the words but doesn’t seem to really mean it.
Trump, the likely 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has sent mixed signals over early voting, a practice he blames, at least in part, on his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden. That puts him at least somewhat at odds with GOP leaders who have belatedly but enthusiastically embraced the practice. This includes Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a GOP star of sorts after his 2021 win in a state that had been trending blue.
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Assuming Trump nabs the 2024 GOP nomination — and most polls show him at least 30 percentage points ahead of primary rivals like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley — his level of enthusiasm could affect the outcome in key swing states. Like the 2016 and 2020 presidential races, a 2024 Biden-Trump rematch could be decided by a cumulative tens of thousands of votes in a handful of swing states, meaning every strategy and tactic, if deployed properly, can make a difference.
In late July, Trump said he supported the Republican National Committee’s “Bank Your Vote” initiative ahead of the 2024 presidential elections, a sign he was moving away from his past stances against early voting. The RNC’s “Bank Your Vote” program launched in June as an attempt to persuade Republicans to vote before Election Day, including through absentee voting, legal ballot harvesting, and in-person early voting.
Trump’s support of the initiative was a marked departure from his previous statements denigrating early voting as not secure. During a mid-July Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity, Trump, who continues to make unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud, said he embraced early voting but voiced some concerns about the process.
“They also create phony ballots, and that’s a real problem. That’s my opinion,” Trump told Hannity.
On the campaign trail since then, Trump has, from time to time, voiced similar doubts about early voting, a program wholeheartedly embraced by Democrats in the past several election cycles.
Dampening Enthusiasm?
There’s good reason to think Trump’s past rejection of early voting has cost Republicans dearly. He denigrated the practice in the run-up to a pair of January 2021 Senate runoffs in Georgia. Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won those seats — tipping the chamber’s majority to Democrats, which the party still holds.
In the 2022 midterm elections, Trump was again largely bearish on early voting. It proved at least a contributing factor to Republican candidates losing winnable races in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania.
Trump seems to have recognized, relatively late in the game, that early voting has the potential to boost support for him in his bid to be the only second return president, after Democrat Grover Cleveland, in the White House during nonconsecutive terms spanning 1885-89 and 1893-97.
A September USA Today poll of unlikely voters found that, by a 2-1 margin, people who said they don’t plan on casting a vote next year would vote for Trump if they could be convinced to show up. Those unlikely voters include registered voters (32% for Trump, 13% for Biden) and unregistered ones (28% for Trump, 15% for Biden).
But Trump doesn’t seem particularly interested in attracting new voters beyond his nationalist-populist MAGA base, Patricia Crouse, a practitioner in residence at the University of New Haven, told the Washington Examiner.
“I don’t think Trump makes a good effort at trying to expand beyond his base,” Crouse said. “And I also don’t think Biden is doing a great job right now of the same thing.”
The difference between Trump and Biden, however, is that while the incumbent isn’t inspiring confidence in voters, his likely challenger has frequently told them to stay home.
“We have to be careful. You’ve got to get out there and you got to watch those voters,” Trump told a crowd in Derry, New Hampshire, last month. “You don’t have to vote, don’t worry about voting. The voting, we got plenty of votes.”
Crouse said that tactic wasn’t something she’d seen in past elections.
“That’s sort of the opposite of what you want to tell people,” she said. “Voter turnout is exceptionally important. The lower the voter turnout, the less likely a particular party is going to win.”
And Republicans think they can win big next year.
The National Republican Congressional Committee released a memo this week outlining their plan to grow their razor-thin majority in the House.
On the other side of the Capitol, Republicans are staring down a friendly Senate map that leaves them with few, if any, truly vulnerable incumbents. While Democrats, currently holding a 51-49 edge, face strong Republican challenges in the red-leaning states of Montana and Ohio, and particularly West Virginia, where in 2020 Trump crushed Biden 69%-30%.
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With the possibility of real House and Senate gains, the Republican establishment has jumped on the early-vote bandwagon as a way to juice turnout and try to replicate the successes of 2020. While Trump lost the White House to Biden, House Republicans, then in the minority, did considerably better than expected. Against most pundit predictions, House Republicans gained 13 seats in the 435-member chamber, putting them within striking distance of nabbing the majority two years later, which they did.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) in particular has been a booster of getting Republicans to mail in their ballots, perhaps as a way to differentiate himself from other prospective Republican presidential candidates. However, that prospect is off the table after the Nov. 7 off-year elections. A swath of state legislative candidates in Virginia backed by Youngkin came up short, leaving Virginia’s House of Delegates and state Senate in Democratic hands, with the power to block the governor’s agenda over the second half of his four-year term.
Youngkin, along with RNC Chairwoman McDaniel, have in recent months been among the highest-profile backers in early voting. It’s a stance that at times still puts them at odds with Trump.
In the former president’s eyes, these tactics are precisely the problem. Early votes and mailed-in ballots laid the foundation of Trump’s “Big Lie” that spoiled the 2020 Georgia Senate runoff for the GOP. It’s also turned off those nonvoters who would otherwise turn out for Trump — and possibly down-ballot Republicans.
Trump telling voters the election was rigged in Georgia in the 2020 presidential race “dampened turnout” in the runoff, Matt Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, told the Washington Examiner.
“People are hearing that message and some are saying, ‘Why would I go waste my time? It’s set up to be stolen again,’” said Dallek, author of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right, published in March.
And the problem for Trump, Dallek said, is not only that he is telling voters not to show up, but that he doesn’t have any sort of “get out the vote” message, since it would contradict what he’s been saying for the last three years.
“His message over the past several years has, at least at times, dampened, sown doubts among Republicans about the voting process and the integrity of it,” Dallek said.
There’s a chance Trump is tuning into an old idea that high-turnout elections will always benefit Democrats, whereas low-turnout elections are better for Republicans. If he can convince enough people to stay home, he can drive down the baseline and help push the GOP over the top.
But Crouse said she doesn’t think that’s an accurate way to think about elections.
“High turnout, just a general, is good for everybody,” Crouse said. “But it’s also, high turnout benefits whatever party does the best job at motivating voters to come out.”
The 2020 contest wasn’t exactly a battle of unknowns, but a 2024 rematch will be deja vu all over again. The handful of nonvoters who said they’d line up behind Trump if they had to could make all the difference. Moreover, voter turnout has reached record highs during the Trump era.
“The elections of 2018, 2020, and 2022 were three of the highest-turnout U.S. elections of their respective types in decades,” Pew Research Center said in a July 12 report.
“About two-thirds (66%) of the voting-eligible population turned out for the 2020 presidential election — the highest rate for any national election since 1900,” Pew reported. “The 2018 election (49% turnout) had the highest rate for a midterm since 1914. Even the 2022 election’s turnout, with a slightly lower rate of 46%, exceeded that of all midterm elections since 1970.”
“I think it’s just a matter of who motivates their voters to come out,” Crouse said.
And therein lies the problem for Trump, a populist who has built a following of committed supporters who hang on his every word, including his message telling them to stay home.
“I think the bind for Trump, and Trump-supporting Republicans, is that you’re really discouraging people from voting,” Dallek said. “And your core message is, ‘the system is rigged.’ And if the system is rigged, why should people go vote?”
Dallek added, “That is a kind of structural, political problem for Trump’s Republican Party right now.”
How might Trump’s approach to early voting impact his support from his base versus his ability to attract moderate voters?
The School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University, told USA Today.
“It’s a missed opportunity because, as polls have consistently shown, there are voters out there who are not yet committed to either party and are open to persuasion,” Crouse said.
Playing Both Sides
Trump’s mixed signals on early voting may be a strategic move. By expressing support for early voting while also voicing concerns about its security and integrity, Trump can appeal to both sides of the political spectrum.
For his base of supporters who are wary of widespread voter fraud, Trump’s concerns about phony ballots provide reassurance that he is still fighting to ensure the integrity of the election process. At the same time, by acknowledging the popularity and effectiveness of early voting, Trump can attract moderate voters who value convenient and accessible voting options.
This approach allows Trump to maintain his strong support from his base while also reaching out to undecided voters and potentially expanding his voter base. However, it also risks confusing and alienating some voters who may interpret his mixed signals as indecision or lack of commitment to a specific stance.
Conclusion
Trump’s mixed signals on early voting reflect the complex dynamics of electoral politics. As a potential 2024 presidential nominee, Trump is balancing the demands of his base with the need to attract undecided voters and expand his support. While his past rejection of early voting may have cost Republicans in previous elections, Trump seems to have recognized its potential to boost his own chances of victory. By expressing support for early voting while also voicing concerns about its security, Trump is attempting to appeal to both sides of the political spectrum. Whether this strategic approach will be effective remains to be seen, but it certainly highlights the importance of early voting in shaping election outcomes.
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