At nearly every Donald Trump rally, scripted words encouraging early voting are loaded into the teleprompter. But those words are rarely the actual message the former president is delivering to his audience.
The Republican National Committee has embraced early voting in 2024. Trump has promoted it in recordings played by the GOP at his convention and in ads played around the country, as well as in copies of his prepared speeches at rallies. But live and on the trail, Trump’s tone on the topic has been inconsistent, often veering from remarks and instead sowing doubt about the legitimacy of early voting, confusing Republican voters — and potentially undermining the party’s vote-chasing efforts this fall.
“They have early voting, late voting, everything is so ridiculous,” Trump said onstage in Palm Beach, Florida, in July. “We should have one-day elections, paper ballots, voter ID, certification of citizenship. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s installed RNC leaders, Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, have been crisscrossing the country on a “Protect the Vote” election integrity tour. A key part of their advocacy: promoting the importance of early voting.
“President Trump’s message is very clear. It’s great if you want to vote early,” Whatley said during a tour stop in Tampa, Florida, this summer. “It’s great if you want to vote by mail,” he continued.
That same day, Trump gave a contradictory answer when asked about early voting in an interview: “Anytime you vote by mail, you have fraud and some people don’t like me saying that, but I’ll say it,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News.
State election officials have noted that voter fraud is rare and that states with mail-in voting have numerous security measures in place to prevent abuse of mail-in ballots.
Trump doesn’t always dismiss early and mail-in voting in those terms. He voted early this month in his home state of Florida and posted a TikTok video encouraging people to vote early. He also occasionally delivers a prepared remark encouraging early voting without emphasizing his skepticism of the practice.
“Throughout this election cycle, President Trump, the RNC and our campaign have been clear to voters: vote early,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s national spokesperson, said in a statement.
Yet the inconsistency of Trump’s early voting messages has left many of his supporters cynical and confused on the subject.
“I don’t think there should be early voting,” Bob Breneman, a Trump supporter from Pennsylvania, said in an interview. “I believe there should be photo voting and photo voting, to be honest. Because that would eliminate a lot of the cheating that goes on,” he said.
Another Trump supporter, Susan Anderson of Nevada, said, “I think same-day voting is a good idea because it keeps it more fair.”
When asked next how she would vote, Anderson replied, “We would do anything, and usually that’s early voting.”
The RNC’s “Protect the Vote” tour has visited key struggling states this summer, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, where early voting is often seen as an effective option for their Republican audience.
“We’ve made an effort to reach out to people — call it a nationwide early voting program,” Whatley said at one of the events.
Despite the RNC’s efforts, the dozens of Trump supporters in key states NBC spoke to still agreed with their party leader’s hesitation.
“I think we should just have paper ballots on voting day, that’s what I think,” said Trump supporter Troy Mattson. “That’s the only way to do it. We need to get back to that.”
Early voting is a method of casting a ballot that proponents say increases the likelihood of turnout. In the United States, all 50 states and Washington, D.C., allow early voting by mail or in person, with 35 states plus D.C. allowing no-excuse early voting.
But Trump has polarized an issue that previously enjoyed broader support across the political spectrum and has long been leveraged in Republican-leaning states.
This year, just 37% of Republicans say people should be able to vote early without giving a specific reason, according to May polling from the Pew Research Center. That’s in stark contrast to Democrats’ 82% support. While the Democratic tally is unchanged in six years, Republican support has fallen nearly 20 points in that time, Pew said.
According to Pew research, while Covid-19 had a major impact on the voting behavior of many in 2020, Biden voters were nearly twice as likely to vote by mail as Trump supporters.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
