Republicans are going on the offensive ahead of the 2024 cycle, vowing to defeat Democrats by using one of their greatest assets against them: early voting.
The Republican National Committee posted a short tweet on Friday, claiming the GOP would “beat the Dems at their own early voting game in 2024.” The statement comes as Republicans have begun reconsidering their stance on early voting and ballot harvesting, particularly after the party’s lackluster performance in the midterm elections.
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“Our voters need to vote early,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told Fox News in December after the 2022 elections. “There were many in 2020 saying, 'Don’t vote by mail, don’t vote early,' and we have to stop that and understand that if Democrats are getting ballots in for a month, we can’t expect to get it all done in one day.”
Since the 2020 election, several Republicans have taken a staunch anti-absentee and mail-in voting stance, claiming the practice has made elections susceptible to widespread voter fraud. Former President Donald Trump especially clung to these theories, claiming baselessly that such fraud was responsible for his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
Democrats, on the other hand, have long embraced the practice of absentee voting, which led to major gains during the 2020 elections with so many voters opting to cast their ballots by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Republicans were warier of utilizing the method.
Since then, Republicans have begun to change their tune, especially after the party performed worse than expected during the midterm elections. Despite initial predictions the GOP would gain control of both chambers of Congress, the party failed to win the Senate and clinched only a small majority in the House.
It’s likely Republicans may seek to tweak their messaging during the 2024 cycle, with possible and announced presidential contenders, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, already voicing that the GOP needs to change the way it addresses absentee voting.
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Trump is also considering a shift in messaging.
“Our path forward is to MASTER the Democrats’ own game of harvesting ballots in every state we can,” Trump wrote in a fundraising email. “But that also means we need to start laying the foundation for victory RIGHT NOW.”
Trump has maintained that he finds the system of absentee voting “corrupt” but told Breitbart News that the GOP would need to learn how to “live with the system that stinks.”