The GOP spent millions supporting mail ballots. Now Trump's attacking them again.
Trump has long attacked mail voting even as he has availed himself of the system, heaping baseless blame on it for his 2020 election loss and goading GOP voters into spurning them in subsequent elections. He continued to vilify mail voting through the 2024 election, even as Republicans launched expensive efforts to encourage their voters to take advantage of it — falsely claiming that 20 percent of mail ballots in Pennsylvania were 'fraudulent' and suggesting that mail carriers would 'lose hundreds of thousands of ballots, maybe purposefully.'
Now Trump is back to blasting mail voting as a 'hoax' that begets 'massive voter fraud' — and is also railing against voting machines — as he hunts for ways to protect Republicans heading into a midterm cycle that is historically bad for the party in power. After his Truth Social post Monday, the president urged Republicans to 'get tough and stop it' and said he has lawyers crafting him an executive order on the subject while taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
'If you don't have mail-in voting, you're not going to have many Democrats get elected. That's bigger than anything having to do with redistricting, believe me,' Trump said. 'Republicans have to get smart.'
Republicans such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk were quick on Monday to amplify Trump's renewed offensive on mail voting — and his unfounded claims of fraud.
It has never been clear that offering mail voting sways election outcomes, as voters who cast mail ballots may have voted other ways. States that have expanded access to early or mail voting have seen no obvious benefit for either party. But party operatives generally like to get their voters to cast ballots early because it frees up resources for them to focus on the voters that remain.
Trump also has no power to simply end mail voting. The Constitution gives states the power to set the 'times, places and manner' for federal elections and stipulates that only Congress can override state election laws. Any executive order Trump signs to change how votes are cast would likely be met with legal challenges.
Still, his scaremongering alone could sway his base away from the practice and erase Republicans' gains.
Voting by mail 'historically has been an advantage for Republicans' in Arizona and is a 'safe and secure way to vote and has been for a generation in Arizona,' said Barrett Marson, a longtime GOP consultant in the state.
But 'the president has sown distrust in the early balloting and mail-in ballot process, and Democrats have stepped up their game on the early voting efforts,' Marson said. 'And that's not good.'
Reilly, the RNC committeeman from Pennsylvania, acknowledged it could be 'confusing' for voters to 'have party officials telling you to use [mail voting] and then calling for it to be eliminated,' but he downplayed any concern.
'Voters are smart,' he said.
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