Former President Trump’s muddled messages on early voting risk hurting Republicans as they look to revamp their strategy heading into 2024.
During a town hall interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity this week, Trump said he would encourage Republicans to do early voting. At the same time, he also sowed doubt over the approach — baselessly alleging people make “phony ballots” and claiming “a lot of bad things happen to those ballots.”
Those comments are a stark contrast to recent initiatives launched by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) to encourage GOP voters to cast their ballots early as they look to make up ground against Democrats in early voting.
“It’s not helpful. I think [Trump] raising questions about mail-in votes is a big part of why we don’t control the Senate and why we have such a slim majority in the House. It’s just ludicrous that the party wouldn’t be united in encouraging voters to vote early,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who worked on Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) 2016 presidential campaign.
Republicans are increasingly embracing early voting as a way to juice up GOP voter turnout as the party looks to change Republicans’ mindset over a strategy the former president has demonized.
Last month, the RNC launched a “Bank Your Vote” campaign that aims to encourage voters to vote early. A press release stated the initiative would “encourage, educate, and activate Republican voters on when, where, and how to lock in their votes as early as possible, through in-person early voting, absentee voting, and ballot harvesting where legal.”