Vote By Mail Tirades Are Starting To Bite Trump-- And Down-Ballot Republicans-- In The Ass

With Trump forces-- whether in the U.S. or Russia-- having prepared to steal the election by hacking voting machines in a few pivotal counties, news of heavily-promoted absentee voting, which has always been friendlier to Republicans than Democrats, sent Trump into a months-long rage. And all his carrying on against vote-by-mail, even though he and his family normally vote by mail themselves, many of his most devoted followers have decided to not vote by mail.

One of the first indications of what that was going to mean to Republicans-- not just Trump-- came back in early April when Wisconsin Democrat Jill Karofsky, who was endorsed by Bernie, ousted far right sociopath Daniel Kelly, who had been endorsed by Trump (a virtual kiss-of-death) from his seat on the state Supreme Court. She didn't just scrape by either. The final vote in this "50/50 state" that Trump won in 2016 was 855,573 (55.2%) to 693,134 (44.7%).

Absentee voting hit a record high that day. Of 1.5 million votes cast, 1.1 million were by mail. NPR reported that "[A]t least 71% of votes cast last Tuesday were absentee. In the 2016 general election in Wisconsin, and in 2018's midterms, fewer than 30% of votes were cast absentee. And in 2014, fewer than 20% were." How does 1.1 million absentee ballots compare with absentee voting in past spring elections?

• 2019- 89,218
• 2018- 129,811
• 2017- 103,373
• 2016- 247,052
• 2015- 102,723

In other words, almost double the number of people voted absentee in 2020 than in the previous 5 years combined! And with many Republicans following Trump's anti-vote-by-mail rants, Karofsky ran up a huge margin. Normally, Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin are extremely close and less than a percentage point divides winners and losers.

Yesterday, reporting for Politico Alex Isenstadt shows how Trump is being hoist on his own petard now. "Democrats are amassing an enormous lead in early voting," he wrote, "alarming Republicans who worry they’ll need to orchestrate a huge Election Day turnout during a deadly coronavirus outbreak to answer the surge. The Democratic dominance spreads across an array of battleground states, according to absentee ballot request data compiled by state election authorities and analyzed by Democratic and Republican data experts. In North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Democrats have a roughly three-to-one advantage over Republicans in absentee ballot requests. In Florida-- a must-win for President Donald Trump-- the Democratic lead stands at more than 700,000 ballot requests, while the party also leads in New Hampshire, Ohio and Iowa."

Even more concerning for Republicans, Democrats who didn't vote in 2016 are requesting 2020 ballots at higher rates than their GOP counterparts. The most striking example is Pennsylvania, where nearly 175,000 Democrats who sat out the last race have requested ballots, more than double the number of Republicans, according to an analysis of voter rolls by the Democratic firm TargetSmart.

Though the figures are preliminary, they provide a window into Democratic enthusiasm ahead of the election and offer a warning for Republicans. While Democrats stockpile votes and bring in new supporters, Trump’s campaign is relying on a smooth Election Day turnout operation at a time when it’s confronting an out-of-control pandemic and a mounting cash crunch.

“A ballot in is a ballot in, and no late-campaign message or event takes it out of the count,” said Chris Wilson, a GOP pollster who specializes in data and analytics. “Bottom line is that means that Biden is banking a lead in the mail and more of the risk of something going wrong late is born by Republicans because our voters haven't voted yet.”

...[T]he data also shows that Democrats are attracting new supporters in small but potentially significant numbers in states they narrowly lost in 2016.

In Pennsylvania, which Trump won by just 44,000 votes four years ago, Democrats have built a lead of nearly 100,000 ballot requests from voters who didn’t participate in the 2016 election but are preparing to vote by mail this year, according to TargetSmart’s figures. In Michigan, where Trump won by fewer than 11,000 votes (and where voters do not register by party), the firm’s model shows that Democratic-aligned voters have a nearly 20,000-person advantage among non-2016 voters signing up to receive ballots. In Wisconsin, which Trump won by 22,000 votes, Democratic-leaning voters who skipped 2016 have made nearly 10,000 more requests for this election than their GOP counterparts.

Republicans are also encouraging supporters to vote absentee. Through telephone calls, digital advertising and mailers, they have prodded Trump backers to vote early or by mail. The pro-Trump outside group America First Action, meanwhile, has been following up with voters to ensure they are turning in their ballots.

Yet Trump-- much to the frustration of senior Republicans-- has undermined those efforts with repeated attacks on mail-in voting. The president has used his recent public appearances and his Twitter feed to savage voting by mail as a process that can’t be trusted.

“It's a case of what Trump actually says mattering a lot more than what his campaign does. The campaign is working hard to get absentees requested and, soon, returned; but Trump bashing mail voting repeatedly makes strong Republicans much less likely to do it,” Wilson said.

Democrats, who were widely criticized for running a lackluster turnout operation four years ago, say they are capitalizing on a wave of anti-Trump energy to bank ballots. The party used its convention to press early voting, with prominent figures like former first lady Michelle Obama imploring people to cast ballots as soon as possible.

They point to Florida as a major bright spot. Democrats lead Republicans in vote-by-mail requests 2.1 million to 1.4 million, according to a GOP consultant who is tracking the figures. At this same point in 2016, Democrats trailed Republicans in requests.

“While Trump is busy kneecapping Republican efforts to sign up his supporters to vote by mail with debunked claims about absentee voting, Democrats have a massive grassroots army focused on turning out voters early and on Election Day, and we're already seeing strong results and real energy-- including among first time voters," said Michael Gwin, a Biden campaign spokesperson.

Joshua Hicks' state legislative campaign in Florida's Nassau and Duval counties is encouraging voters to request their vote-by-mail ballots as are the local parties, along with the Biden campaign. Hicks' campaign has been putting a great deal of energy into reaching out to Democrats who missed either the 2016 or 2018 election, encouraging them to request a ballot and Joshua told me that they have been seeing real progress. In Florida, Democrats have a massive vote-by-mail advantage, and during the primary in August, you saw Democrats return these ballots in big numbers. "Here in Duval County," he told me, "Democrats outvoted Republicans in the primary on August 18th-- thanks in large part due to our efforts to get people to vote-by-mail and return their ballots. Here in Duval and in Nassau counties in my district, we have designated mail ballot 'drop boxes' in case people do not trust the mail system... I hope Democratic and anti-Trump voters across District 11 here in Northeast Florida and really across the country will request a vote-by-mail ballot and fill it out immediately when it arrives and place it back in the mail. But more importantly, we all must vote. Whether it is by mail, early or on Election Day, we must strengthen our Democracy by turning out the vote and rejecting Donald Trump once and for all. We are working hard to encourage people to vote-by-mail and to vote early here in Florida. Ballots start going out in Florida on September 24th and the earlier you send it back in, the quicker it counts. We can't take this election for granted."

Bob Lynch is the Democrat taking on Trumpist Daniel Perez in a swing state House district in Miami-Dade. Vote by mail seems to have a different set of challenges for Democrats in his area. "Given all of the information about Russian penetration of various levels of our elections system in Florida," he told me earlier, "you’d think there would be a bigger desire to Vote By Mail. The reality is that we have lagged behind most of the state in VBM applications. The reason behind this is largely cultural. My district is unique in that have a large proportion of immigrants, first generation, and second generation Americans. Almost all from countries with a longstanding and deeply seeded issue with strongmen and fraudulent elections. Participating in Democratic elections is often seen as a family activity to be celebrated by everyone going out to exercise their right to vote. Donald Trump has not helped things out by his continued unfounded accusations of rampant fraud in Vote By Mail. Couple that with slowed down processing times with the Miami-Dade USPS and we don’t have a good situation. The GOP’s Soviet style and Russian aided propaganda machine has once again been deployed to make people believe the opposite of what is true. Maybe if the media gave more attention to experts like Jenny Cohn, who has worked tirelessly to expose the vulnerabilities of wireless modems present in Miami-Dade County voting machines, we wouldn’t be in a situation like this. Yet here we are. Trump’s assault on Vote By Mail is not the accidental rantings of a delusional madman. I’m hoping that the larger state level advantage Dems have in VBM will win the day. However, more my particular race and in a county as important as MDC, we are proving the age old adage that all politics is local."

Adam Christensen is a candidate for Congress on the other end of Florida, up north. Vote by mail is a major part of his campaign. "By now," he told me today, "we all know the power of absentee voting and vote by mail. If you have an absentee ballot you are far more likely to vote than someone showing up at the polls. After speaking with Alan Grayson early into our campaign, it became clear to me that this was an opportunity that we had to take advantage of and if we were successful it would help to close the gap in the number of votes we needed to win. The goal of a campaign is to run up the score in places you will win and cut the margins in places you won’t. With that in mind we got to work.

1- Our phone banking operation has included information and links for getting every democratic signed up to vote by mail (even before the  primary). We have increased these efforts especially in the rural areas.

2- We have progressive firepower coming from across the nation to achieve this. Humanity Forward and Done Waiting have both announced their support and thrown their phone banking operations behind us to help register as many Democrats for VBM as  we can before time  runs out.

3- CHASE THE BALLOTS: With this firepower it gives us the ability to call everyone that has a ballot to make sure it gets in. We have up to the day information about who has and who has not turned them in. Grassroots firepower, with more effective methods. GAME CHANGING

"When a playbook doesn’t work," he concluded, "you throw it out. The way Democratic campaigns were traditionally run in Florida is over. We are rewriting the playbook because the way things have been done doesn’t work. Adapt or Die, and the Republican Party is dying."