EARLY VOTING SUGGESTS BIDEN IS GOING TO ANNIHILATE TRUMP, AND THE GOP IS SOILING ITSELF
If you’ve turned on a TV, radio, phone, or computer in the last several months, odds are you’ve heard Donald Trump ranting about how mail-in voting is rife with fraud. Obviously he’s taking this approach not because he actually thinks that’s the case—he and the first lady requested mail-in ballots to vote in Florida’s primary—but because he’s trying to sow fear in the system and undermine the election. And so far, it’s working! While Republicans once had an edge in requesting mail-in ballots, the president seems to have successfully scared off his own supporters. Now, Democrats’ ballot requests are reportedly surging ahead in key battleground states, making Republicans more than a little bit anxious.
The Washington Post reports that the Democratic voters who have requested mail-in ballots and sent them back “greatly outnumber Republicans” in states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maine, and Iowa. A similar trend is apparently occurring in Ohio, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin, and GOP leaders and strategists are freaking out. The disparity has reportedly been “the subject of urgent discussions” among GOP officials, who are “stunn[ed]” by the margins and fear the news is not just bad for Trump but for other Republicans on the ballot. While the party is said to be focused on voter turnout on Election Day itself, Whit Ayers, a longtime Republican pollster, told the Post the fear is that older voters, who typically support Republicans, are concerned about being infected with COVID-19 and could choose to stay home if the pandemic intensifies in the run-up to November 3 (which would be yet another reason not to cast a ballot for Trump, whose handling of the crisis has been shambolic at best).
While they’d likely never say it in public, privately, officials know they have the president to thank for the skewed numbers when it comes to mail-in ballots, and Republicans have spent the last few months frantically trying to clean up the mess:
...several Republicans acknowledged privately that there is little upside for their party in the numbers—and said they are working feverishly to reverse the trend with a last-minute press with voters. “It’s astronomical,” said one Republican strategist involved in Senate races who said he was “horrified” by the discrepancy and, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal concerns. “You see these numbers in a state like North Carolina, and how can you not be concerned?”
The issue is reportedly of such concern that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has twice met with Trump to urge him to shut the hell up with his talk of fraud and rigged elections. And while he’s clearly been unable to get through to the guy, Republicans have a not-so-secret weapon they’re prepared to deploy should Biden’s edge continue through election day: |
