Around this time four years ago, then-president Donald Trump was talking nonstop about his conviction that mail-in voting would rig the 2020 election in Joe Biden's favor.
But in 2024, the Trump team now sees early, absentee, and vote-by-mail turnout from low-propensity voters as essential to victory, with "Swamp the Vote" signs now appearing on the big screen at Trump rallies. Republicans have invested millions this cycle into early vote turnout efforts, and, acting on the advice of his campaign advisers, the GOP nominee is urging his supporters to cast their ballots early to better compete with the Democrats, who have long dominated Republicans on this front.
Data suggest Republican investments in non–Election Day voting — coupled with Trump's changed rhetoric — are paying dividends in a dead-heat race.
"There's a lot that you could probably point to in the early voting data and a lot of the voter registration numbers that seem to confirm this idea that Republican voters are energized and enthusiastic heading into this final stretch of the campaign," says GOP pollster Patrick Ruffini of Echelon Insights.
As of this writing, nearly 25 million Americans have cast ballots early by mail or in person nationwide, according to the University of Florida Election Lab's early vote data. And data suggest Republicans aren't lagging very far behind Democrats on the early-vote front in other states. The early-vote partisan breakdown shows 43 percent of votes have been cast by Democrats, compared to 35 percent by Republicans and 22 percent by voters with no party affiliation, according to data from the states that report early voting by party registration.
Georgia and North Carolina both set record first-day early-vote totals, even after Hurricane Helene ravaged parts of both states. "We're seeing very strong turnout continue regarding the early vote, so we are hopeful that everybody you know is going to be able to vote without any hitches," Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley said in a recent interview with National Review. In North Carolina, the state legislature "did a really good job of moving very quickly to pass a bill that would allow flexibility for counties where they needed to change locations," he added . . .
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