Trump's War on Mail Ballots Could Easily Backfire

[applegrove]

Trump’s War on Mail Ballots Could Easily Backfire

August 19, 2025 at 7:43 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

https://politicalwire.com/2025/08/19/trumps-war-on-mail-ballots-could-easily-backfire/

Two decades ago, Republicans benefited from trying to make it harder to vote. Their voters were much more reliable to turn out in the midterm elections than Democrats.

But voting patterns have shifted in the Trump era.

These days it’s the Democrats who have the more reliable voters and the Republicans who rely on low propensity voters.

That means efforts to make voting harder may not help Republicans at all.

[Lovie777]

1. Plus..............

the economy sucks, and many do not feel safe because of shithole and comrades.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. And, how effective will redistricting be in Texas if those of latino descent

Last edited Tue Aug 19, 2025, 10:25 AM - Edit history (1)

decide not to vote for Republicans.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. I know many

are Roman Catholics - so they vote pro-life, anti-gay, the moral majority type.

Not all but many.

They are going to have to make a choice of what matters to them more.

[allegorical oracle]

8. Agree with your point, but I've been wondering if the Repugs believe that Hispanics

mostly vote for Dems -- and that's why the full court press is on to remove as many of them as possible. (Using the baloney that they're all illegally here and are criminals.) As "camps" are becoming more numerous. We know legal "brown" people are being picked up and detained just for not having white enough skin.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. These redistricting could end up dummymanders

I have been volunteering on voting rights/voter protection since 2004 when I went to Florida as part of the Kerry Edwards voter protection team. I have testified before committees of both the Texas House and Senate on gerrymandered districts. Part of my testimony was used in a prior lawsuit that unfortunately failed. Texas is heavily gerrymandered. My congressional district went from a R+1 to a R+21 as part of the last gerrymander. trump wants Ohio and Texas to re-gerrymander their districts to help in the midterms. I was amused to see that these efforts run a risk of failing

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/11/texas-redistricting-00448145

But in Texas, Republicans are in danger of creating a so-called dummymander, whereby an attempt to draw more seats for one party accidentally benefits the other. Texas’ congressional map already heavily favors the GOP, so any changes to further benefit the party would have to walk a careful line. Adding Republican voters to blue districts to reduce Democrats’ margins means taking those same voters out of the red districts where they reside. The result is more competitive districts across the board — ones Democrats hope to take advantage of as they harness anti-Trump energy in the midterms.

“They are playing a little bit of roulette with these maps,” said Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas). “In a wave election like what we have a potential opportunity for in ‘26 I think it makes these Republicans very vulnerable.”

Texas has 38 House seats, with 25 held by Republicans. Members of the state’s Democratic delegation huddled with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as the redistricting talk ramped up, with follow-up meetings planned.

Jeffries warned in a statement Wednesday that an aggressive map could “result in making several incumbent House Republicans vulnerable to fierce general election challenges.”

“Republicans are cutting off their nose to spite their face,” he added.....

Democrats are almost certain to sue over whatever new maps are created in both Ohio and Texas, said John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

“I imagine we will have a lot to say about the map they create and the legalities of it,” he said Thursday.

On top of everything else, there is a trial going on with respect to the Texas maps that these efforts may affect.

This will be fun to watch

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. MaddowBlog-Trump's crusade against mail-in ballots isn't doing Republicans any favors

Republican officials want their party’s voters to cast their ballots through the mail. The president’s rhetoric is undermining his party’s message.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trumps-crusade-mail-ballots-isnt-republicans-favors-rcna225844

Then Trump hosted an Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during which the Republican became rather animated — but not about the largest war in Europe since World War II. Rather, the American president got worked up talking about how much he hates when Americans vote by casting ballots through the mail.

Trump echoes comments he said Putin made to him last Friday: "Mail in ballots are corrupt. You can never have a real democracy w/ mail in ballots. We as a Republican Party are gonna do everything possible. We're gonna start with an executive order to end mail in ballots."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-08-18T17:44:45.317Z

.....To justify this radical and aggressive offensive against this form of voting, Trump is peddling a variety of stale lies. More importantly, he’s claiming legal authority he does not have. But whether he realizes it or not, the president is also taking steps that won’t do his party any favors. Politico reported that he’s “once again threatening to undermine” a Republican electoral priority.

Republicans poured tens of millions of dollars last year into convincing their voters that casting ballots by mail was safe after Trump spent years bashing the practice and baselessly insisting it was rife with fraud. And it worked, with GOP voters closing or even reversing the mail voting gap with Democrats in several states. But now Trump is attacking mail voting again as he ratchets up his push to protect Republicans’ House majority in the midterms, scrambling a strategy Republicans effectively used to bank millions of votes in 2024.

Politico quoted Barrett Marson, a longtime GOP consultant in Arizona, who said voting by mail “historically has been an advantage for Republicans” in the Grand Canyon State and is a “safe and secure way to vote and has been for a generation in Arizona.” He added, however, that as the president sows “distrust” in the process and Democrats step up their game, the result is “not good” for Republicans.

It would be tough to blame GOP voters for feeling confused at this point. For years, Trump, the party’s undisputed leader, has veered wildly between two opposite positions. On the one hand, he’s falsely condemned mail-in voting as irredeemably corrupt and “stupid.” On the other hand, in between delivering those condemnations, the president has also encouraged rank-and-file GOP voters to cast their ballots through the mail.

At one point in 2023, Trump even told attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference that it was time for Republicans to “change our thinking” on mail-in voting, and soon after, he filmed a video for the Republican National Committee in support of the party’s early voting initiative.

In Texas, vote by mail is a key part of the GOP GOTV efforts. A larger percentage of GOP voters are older and vote by mail. trump may be hurting GOP GOTV efforts

[Blue Full Moon]

6. Russia has it also. Trump just looks like the moron that he is.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/5/24/putin-changes-russias-electoral-law-to-allow-remote-vote

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. I have some history on vote by mail in Texas

Back in 2011, the Texas GOP passed a voter id law that was later largely gutted in court. Part of that voter id law excluded vote by mail ballots from the voter id requirements because at the time, the GOP was relying on vote by mail for voter turnout. The GOP base is older than the Democratic base and tended to vote by mail more that Democrats. In 2010, the GOP had 4 times the number of voters who voted early in the GOP primary compared to Democratic voters. The Democratic Party started to push vote by mail for our eligible voters who may not have had the proper id. Here is a post about the push by the Texas Democratic Party on vote by mail https://www.democraticunderground.com/107814375

Over the years, the Texas Democrats have narrowed the gap in vote by mail ballots. Now trump thinks that Democrats are using vote by mail more that republicans and that appears to be true in some states.

I note that trump has encouraged vote by mail and has voted by mail

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[LetMyPeopleVote]

9. White House changes course after Trump vows executive order to 'end' mail-in voting

trump may be backing off on abolishing vote by mail

https://rollcall.com/2025/08/20/white-house-changes-course-after-trump-vows-executive-order-to-end-mail-in-voting/

ANALYSIS — The White House has abruptly altered course on President Donald Trump’s vow to have an elite legal team craft an executive order that would end mail-in voting, with a top aide saying the administration would instead forge a legislative path.....

But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday, just over 24 hours later, signaled that the administration had ditched the president’s approach.

“The White House continues to work on this, and when Congress comes back to Washington I’m sure there will be many discussions with our friends on Capitol Hill, and also our friends in state legislatures across the country, to ensure that we’re protecting the integrity of the vote for the American people,” she said. “And I think Republicans generally and the president generally wants to make it easier for Americans to vote and harder for people to cheat in our elections.”

Asked what changed so quickly, and whether Trump had received a legal ruling from within the administration that his office lacked the authority to make such a dramatic election change, a White House spokesman merely lobbed accusations at Democrats and repeated Trump’s 2024 campaign platform on the issue.

I would like to hear this from trump. No matter what trump will be changing his minds on this issue