Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump said in an exclusive interview at Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit in San Antonio, Texas, that Republicans should leave everything to chance this election cycle and do whatever it takes, including changing their messaging and encouraging early voting.
Trump spoke to Breitbart News about some big changes that have been made to the RNC ahead of the election, starting with a “major staff shake-up,” he said.
“That was kind of our first day one operation, and since then we’ve been going through every single vendor, every single contract. We want to make sure we’re getting the best value for our money in everything we do,” she said, explaining that “election integrity” is the “highest and number one priority” at the Republican National Committee.
“If you come to the RNC, the majority of the people working in that building right now are part of the protect election integrity team, and we’re doing a huge effort across the country. We’re looking for 100,000 volunteers for this election. We’re calling for volunteers at protectthevote.com. If you want to volunteer with us, please join us. We’re putting a lot of resources into it, because we can’t have a repeat of the 2020 election again. Frankly, without free, fair and transparent elections, nothing that we’re doing in this country means anything. So we’re really doing things very differently than we’ve ever done before,” she said, explaining that the RNC was changing its messaging and also considering “lawful ballot harvesting like never before.”
“We also want to encourage people to vote. Our messaging is a little bit different than in past polls. We know that Republicans traditionally prefer to vote on Election Day. What we’re asking for in this election is that we want people to vote early,” she said, adding that Republicans should vote early and use the time between then and Election Day to talk to others, “because we can’t just let this happen.”
“Things happen in life. If you wait until Election Day, you never know what’s going to happen. So we want to get this message across to people,” she said, acknowledging that many Republicans are “understandably reluctant” to vote early because it goes against what they’ve consistently heard in previous elections. But she said the RNC is doing all it can to ensure the integrity of the election so Republicans feel comfortable voting early.
“I understand why people feel that way. What happened with mail-in voting in 2020 was terrible, but we’re working hard right now to clean up voter rolls across the country and to make sure that mail-in voting doesn’t send ballots to people who don’t live there. We’re really doing everything we can to make sure people can vote with confidence,” Trump said of the Republican National Committee’s efforts, pointing to Kali Lake’s past campaign in Arizona as a potential problem.
“Look at a place like Arizona, for example. Kali Lake probably would have won the election because we know the margin was so close there. On Election Day, one of the polling places was closed, as you all remember. It was a Republican precinct. There was a line that was around the block to get in and vote. How many people ended up not voting because the polling place was closed?” she asked, noting that freezing rain in Nevada prevented some people from voting.
“Things happen in life, and what we want people to understand is that if you get out and vote early, your vote counts, and it needs to be big enough that it can’t be stolen,” Trump said.
“If you vote, you know it’s at your polling place and you can spend your time encouraging others to go and vote, too,” she added.
