Prominent Republicans are praising early voting after Donald Trump’s win over Kamala Harris, despite years of the president-elect and his allies baselessly bashing the practice as fraudulent.
Former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel told NewsNation on Wednesday that an increase in early voting must be the “norm going forward” for the GOP.
“It was so critical that President Trump, he spoke out on this. I mean, there’s no better person that’s going to get voters to change their habits, to believe in it than President Trump,” she said.
“This is certainly something that took an education, but it wouldn’t have happened without the top of the ticket saying it,” she added. “This has to be the norm going forward, we can’t expect to get everything on Election Day.”
State-level Republicans were similarly upbeat on the practice, with Republican leaders in Georgia telling NBC News they believed it was partially responsible for Trump flipping the state back to the red column in 2024.
During the campaign, Trump was all over the map about early voting, despite admitting he would vote early this time around.
“Voting early, I guess would be good but people have different feelings about it, but the main thing is you’ve got to get out and you’ve got to vote, and I’ll be voting early,” he told Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade during a radio interview.
At the same time, Trump used his campaign to reiterate familiar, disproven attacks on the practice.
During a Pennsylvania rally in September, Trump slammed early voting as “stupid” and urged his supporters to do it anyway.
“We’re here today because early voting begins in Pennsylvania over the next two weeks, and we need each and every one of you to go out,” he said. “Just don’t take anything for granted.”
That same day, he told Fox News, “Anytime you have mail-in voting, you’re going to have fraud and some people don’t like me saying it, but I say it.”
Not all Republicans are convinced that early voting is the future, however.
Utah senator Mike Lee argued on Wednesday the U.S. should end early voting in favor of a single Election Day.
“We should go back to having a single Election Day, with citizens casting their votes in-person, subject to exceptions for those who are unable to make it to a polling location,” he wrote on X. “Waiting this long to count votes sows distrust and undermines the perceived legitimacy of the election, especially if it’s a close one.”
During the 2020 election, 32 percent of Trump voters cast their ballot early, compared with 58 percent of Biden supporters, according to the Pew Research Center.
