Trump, critic of voting by mail, urges Republicans to do it in midterms

President Donald Trump, who has long staged a rhetorical and legal assault against voting by mail even as he used the method himself to cast his ballots, released a video today urging Republicans to vote early and by mail in the midterm election.

“Vote early. Vote by mail. Or vote in person on Election Day,” Trump, who has been using the power of his office to try to restrict mail voting, says in the video, which he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Trump also promoted a Republican Party website offering guidance on voters’ options for casting ballots.

It was the latest contortion from Trump on mail balloting. He has for years promoted unfounded claims that mail voting is rife with fraud, while working to restrict the practice for Americans, an effort that has been stymied by lawmakers and the courts. As recently as July, he said “mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt.” There is no evidence of widespread fraud in mail voting.

When Trump, a Florida voter, mailed in his ballot in a special election in March, he said he had done so “because I’m president of the United States.” Days earlier he had said, “Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating.” He voted by mail again for the primary in August.

He has also criticized early voting in the past.

Trump’s post today comes just more than four weeks ahead of a midterm election in which Democrats have built momentum, polls show.

Trump’s low approval ratings and voter concerns about high prices driven up by the war with Iran have put Republicans at risk of losing control of both chambers of Congress.

Republicans have feared that the president’s assaults on mail balloting put them at a competitive disadvantage in a challenging election year.

About a third of all ballots cast in the 2024 presidential election were sent by mail, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

In March, Trump signed an executive order that would have restricted mail ballots. The action was struck down by the Supreme Court in September. He also sought unsuccessfully to push Congress to approve legislation that would have sharply curtailed mail voting.

Richard Pildes, an election law expert at New York University, said Trump’s statement appeared to be a major shift and a response to his efforts to restrict mail-in voting failing “across the board.”

“He’s realizing that his efforts to change policy on mail-in voting have basically run aground at this point, and he’s shifting gears,” Pildes said.

Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, said that it was too soon to say if Trump would stick to the message, adding that it would be no surprise if the president returned to his claims that mail voting is fraud in the days to come.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some states have already started to send out mail ballots for the Nov. 3 election, and the early voting period has opened in some of them, including Illinois and Minnesota. North Carolina, the first state to start sending out mail ballots, began nearly a month ago.

Trump’s fixation on mail voting began in 2020 and intensified after he lost that year’s election, as he falsely asserted that he had defeated President Joe Biden and made baseless claims that the election had been compromised by mail ballots.

More than 40% of voters in the 2020 election sent in their ballots by mail, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, as the COVID-19 pandemic altered voting habits.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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