Trump blasted mail voting for years, now urges Republicans to use it? Sure, buddy | Opinion

One of the many perfect scenes in my favorite film, “The Blues Brothers,” features John Belushi’s character standing in a church and listening — skeptically at first — to a preacher, played brilliantly by James Brown.

Soon, Jake Blues is awash in a heavenly glow, his mission revealed by the Lord, and he responds (minus some blasphemy): “I have seen the light!”

It came to mind with the somewhat stunning news that former President Donald Trump recorded a message urging Republicans to use early voting, ballot harvesting and mail-in voting to win in 2024, after years of falsely claiming that Democrats used those tools to steal the 2020 election.

Trump’s video is part of a new Republican National Committee push to encourage GOP voters to cast their ballots as soon as possible. It’s called “Bank Your Vote,” presumably because “Forget Every Time Trump Told You Early Voting Was Corrupt” was too long for a website address.

Trump salted this earth with the help of many hard-core supporters, including Texans such as Ken Paxton, who constantly raise the specter of sweeping voter fraud that does not exist. The former president’s whining about it helped cost the party two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia in early 2021, and his backward-focus was a drag on GOP candidates in 2022.

It’s going to take serious work to persuade Republicans to abandon the election paranoia that Trump and others have spent so much time and effort inculcating. And Trump’s heart probably isn’t in it. Just the previous week, he complained to Fox News’ Sean Hannity about the perils of mail balloting, even as he said he was encouraging Republicans to use it.

“The million-dollar question is, who’s the nominee going to be … and what’s the presidential nominee going to be saying about voting and voting early and voting by mail?” said veteran Texas Republican consultant Derek Ryan. If it’s Trump, he added, “you talk about a huge variable. You never know what he’s going to say, and it could even change from day to day what he says. It’s going to take the nominee staying on message and saying that this is a secure way of voting.”

Ryan calculated that in the 2022 general election, for the first time in decades, more Democrats voted by mail in Texas than Republicans. Ryan is a keen evaluator of voter turnout patterns, and while no one can tell how a specific voter cast his or her ballot, Ryan looks at those with regular history turning out in a party’s primaries, a pretty accurate proxy measure for base voters.

In 2014, he said, 49% of mail-in voters were previous GOP primary voters, compared to 33% who had Democratic history. In 2022, those percentages were 38% GOP, 46% Democratic.

Political professionals love to “bank” votes as soon as possible. As RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has noted in talking about the GOP’s new education project, it helps free up resources to target other voters, especially undecided ones, on Election Day.

And as Ryan notes, sometimes fate intervenes.

There’s a possibility that someone says, ‘I’m going to go vote on Election Day,’ and their car breaks down that morning,” he said. “Their priority shifts to getting the car fixed and they may not make it to the polls in time.”

In spite of the mail-balloting dip, Republicans still dominated the state. So, a Republican might ask, what’s the difference?

Ryan found that about 43,000 voters who cast mail ballots in 2018 did not vote at all in the 2022 general election. That may be a drop in the bucket in statewide races but difference-making in downballot contests. And no party, even the mighty Texas GOP, can bleed voters for long without suddenly having more competitive races on its hands.

Texas makes registering to vote hard but casting a ballot pretty easy. Major elections feature two weeks of in-person early voting. Mail ballots are available to anyone older than 65, people with disabilities and those who will be out of town.

Republicans ginned up about election security have tightened procedures on mail ballots, and that’s probably responsible for some of the dip in their use. Some in the GOP also cling to the idea that higher turnout is bad for their party — one of the rare points of agreement with Democrats. Research indicates that higher turnout is pretty much a wash, but the myth persists.

Ryan noted that having to convince their voters that mail-in and early voting are beneficial will cost Republicans other opportunities.

“We’re having to spend money that could be spent discussing issues, mailers to swing voters and things like that,” he said. “Instead of focusing on the independent and swing voters, we’re having to talk to our own voters.”

Trump adds rocket fuel to everything he touches. So, maybe he can reverse the damage he’s done.

Minds can be changed by a steady candidate with message discipline. But this is Trump we’re talking about. Republicans better hope McDaniel has a Plan B.

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