Republicans Are Desperate to Fix Their Biggest Weakness—If Trump Lets Them
When the Republican National Committee announced last summer that they were launching the “Bank Your Vote” program to promote early and mail-in voting, the cognitive dissonance was stark.
Despite all the talk about boosting early votes and taking advantage of the tools Democrats have used themselves, there was total ignorance of the reason such an argument was necessary at all: because Donald Trump spent years persuading core Republican voters that these forms of voting are inherently illegitimate, untrustworthy, and un-Republican.
That hardened distrust has already cost Republicans elections. Routinely, the party’s candidates begin Election Day with massive disadvantages thanks to banked Democratic mail and early votes. Betting that the vast majority of GOP voters will get to the polls on one day—when weather, work, or a host of other reasons can intervene—is a recipe for defeat.