Former President Donald Trump officially embraced early voting, mail-in ballots and absentee voting Tuesday — reversing course from his prior criticism and questioning the legitimacy of those methods.
The non-traditional voting methods are encompassed in the Swamp The Vote USA initiative and are promoted by Trump Force 47, the grassroots organizing program sponsored by the Republican National Committee.
“Republicans must win and we will use every appropriate tool to beat the Democrats because they are destroying our country. Whether you vote absentee, by mail, early in-person or on election day, we are going to protect the vote. We make sure your ballot is secure and your voice is heard,” Trump said in a statement.
“We must swamp the radical Democrats with massive turnout. The way to win is to swamp them, if we swamp them with votes they can’t cheat. You need to make a plan, register, and vote any way possible. We have got to get your vote,” the former president added.
Trump Force 47 will use “personalized voter contacts to generate new absentee or mail ballot registrations and early in-person voting commitments,” the Trump campaign’s statement read.
The 45th president had fiercely criticized mail-in voting throughout the 2020 election and had said the practice is “totally corrupt” as recently as February at a Michigan rally.
He switched course in April, posting on Truth Social that “ABSENTEE VOTING, EARLY VOTING, AND ELECTION DAY VOTING ARE ALL GOOD OPTIONS. REPUBLICANS MUST MAKE A PLAN, REGISTER, AND VOTE!”
Trump’s initial distrust of the non-in-person voting methods stemmed from President Biden coming out on top in the last moments of the 2020 election in critical states due to mail-in voting.
Democrats outnumbered Republicans using absentee or mail-in ballots in that election 58% to 32%, according to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center.
The tide shift was in the works for months, as Republicans came out in support of the voting methods as a part of their strategy to defeat Biden.
Donald Trump Jr. backed early voting in December of 2022, saying Republicans will have to build the same “operation” as the Democrats to have a chance in November.
“That’s the one thing they’re good at, folks. They figure out where they need to be, how they win, there’s no moral compass. There’s no anything. They figure out how to win, how to get where they need to be, and then they do it. And they will run over anything in their way,” the younger Trump said at the time at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference.
Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former senior adviser, had similar sentiments in early May.
“So, I don’t like early voting, but if this is the new normal, you adapt or you die politically,” she said on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
The embrace of the non-traditional voting methods is also in line with Trump’s campaign messaging of urging his supporters to turn out on Election Day to make the results “too big to rig.”
