Former President Donald Trump has announced a major change in a longtime position, and it’s one that could boost his numbers at the polls this fall.
Without much fanfare, in an article on Truth Social last Friday evening, Trump urged his supporters to use early and mail-in voting methods.
“Absentee voting, early voting, and voting on Election Day are all good options. Republicans need to make a plan, register, and vote!” Trump wrote.
That message — a marked shift in Trump’s rhetoric on election practices — is the result of a months-long effort by advisers close to the former president and outside groups, CBS News has learned.
His top advisers encouraged him to accept votes “no matter how they come in,” according to a senior Republican source familiar with the conversations.
“He understands that a lot of his supporters want to get out and vote for him, and that’s a resource advantage for us,” the source said.
Trump has opposed early, absentee and mail-in voting for years, blaming the practices for voter fraud and conditioning voters to distrust these methods. He has repeatedly called for in-person voting on Election Day and paper voting, although he has regularly resorted to early voting.
“We have to get rid of mail-in ballots, because once there are mail-in ballots, you have a corrupt election,” Trump said in his victory speech after the Iowa caucus in January.
One of the key factors that led Trump to vote early and by mail was that data advisors were able to show him that the campaign could actually expand its reach to swing voters in battleground states if the Republican base was comfortable with early voting.
Advisers say this would allow Trump to level the playing field with Mr. Biden on Election Day, since Democrats have historically benefited from early and mail-in voting.
However, it remains to be seen whether Trump will be able to consistently encourage early voting efforts before the election. There are already signs that old habits may be giving rise to mixed messages. In an interview with Newsmax on Thursday evening, Trump said the election should be returned to “paper ballots.”
“You need voter ID and same-day voting,” Trump said. Most ballots cast in the United States have a paper record — 93% did so in 2020, according to the Brennan Center.
Voter Behavior Changed Dramatically in 2020: More Americans adopted early voting like the coronavirus pandemic complicated and depressed in-person voting.
Sixty-nine percent of voters nationwide cast ballots either by mail or early in the 2020 election, making it the highest rate of nontraditional voting in a presidential election, according to the census.
In addition to Trump’s change in rhetoric, Republicans will face a growing divide between the two parties on support for mail-in and early voting. Overall, the gap between Democrats and Republicans in early voting has widened, although it varies by state, says Kabir Khanna, CBS News deputy director of elections and data analysis.
For example, Pennsylvania – a key battleground – had the largest partisan divisions by voting method. In 2020, Mr. Biden won mail-in and absentee ballots by more than 50 points, while Trump won the Election Day vote by more than 30 points. In the end, Mr. Biden narrowly won the state by a margin of 1.2%.
However, in other battleground states, where mail-in voting has been more common in recent years, both parties tend to benefit from early voting.
In Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, the vast majority of ballots for both candidates were cast before Election Day 2020 – more than 90% depending on the state, meaning most of Biden and Trump voters cast their ballots early in these four states. at the height of the pandemic. Texas has a long in-person early voting period, but strictly limits mail-in voting.
Still, Republican voters in these states tend to prefer voting in person rather than by mail, Khanna says.
“In Georgia and North Carolina, more Trump voters than Biden voters showed up early to vote in person in 2020,” Khanna said. “Persuading them to vote by mail could be a bigger asset to the campaign.”
Trump’s shift in rhetoric also comes as new leadership at the Republican National Committee has made revitalizing the mail-in and early voting programs, known as ABEV for short, a priority. priority.
The RNC’s existing program, called “Bank Your Vote,” launched in 2023 and included websites informing voters in all 50 states about how to vote early.
The adoption of early voting practices was welcomed with open arms by Republican groups who pressured Trump advisers for change and stressed that more must be done before November.
Jessica Anderson, president of the conservative super PAC Sentinel Action Fund, which focuses heavily on early and absentee voter turnout, said adopting ABEV programs would be a game-changer for Republicans in the 2024 presidential race.
“President Trump’s embrace of early voting and mail-in voting should be a clear call to conservatives to unite behind this winning strategy for 2024,” Anderson said. “We can no longer show up on Election Day hundreds of thousands of votes behind because we refuse to adapt to the rules on the ground, even if we don’t like them.”
Kabir Khanna contributed to this report.
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