Former President Trump has urged Republicans to “use all appropriate tools to defeat the Democrats,” and leading GOP candidates have said that includes early and absentee voting.
The former president’s 2024 presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee announced the launch of the effort, dubbed “Swamp The Vote USA,” on Tuesday.
This is a marked shift from Trump’s stance four years ago, when he repeatedly denounced early voting and mail-in voting, claiming they were responsible for massive election fraud that led to his defeat by President Biden.
“Republicans must win. Democrats are destroying our country and we will use every appropriate tool to defeat them,” Trump said in a statement.
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Former President Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Wildwood, New Jersey on May 11, 2024. (Hannah Beyer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
He then emphasized, “Whether you vote absentee, by mail, early or on Election Day, we will protect your vote. We will make sure your vote is safe and your voice is heard. We must overwhelm the Radical Democrats with a massive vote. The way to win is to overwhelm them. If we overwhelm them with the vote, they can’t cheat. You must make a plan, register, vote in any way you can. We must get your vote.”
In the past few elections, Democrats have voted early in greater numbers than Republicans, while Republicans tend to turn out in greater numbers on Election Day in November.
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While President Trump has long opposed early voting, a year ago the Republican National Committee, led by former chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, launched a campaign to promote early voting called “Bank the Vote.”
The Trump campaign emphasized on Tuesday that “Swamp The Vote USA is the successor to the Republican National Committee’s Bank Your Vote program.”
People wait to vote outside the Bordeaux Library on the first day of early voting in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
President Trump’s position on early voting has been unclear in recent months.
At a rally in Michigan three months ago, Trump told supporters that early voting was “totally fraudulent” and a “hoax.”
And at a rally in Pennsylvania in April, the former president likened early voting to “stealing the vote.”
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At a mass rally in New Jersey last month, President Trump said “most mail-in ballots are fraudulent.”
But at the event, he urged his supporters to “vote absentee, vote by mail, vote early or vote on Election Day.”
And he stressed the importance of early voting several times in social media posts.
Former President Trump held a rally on May 23, 2024, in the historically Democratic South Bronx neighborhood of New York City. (Spencer Pratt/Getty Images)
The Trump campaign said the new effort to promote early voting is part of the recently announced Trump Force 47, a neighborhood-to-neighbor grassroots organizing program between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee that is “focused on mobilizing targeted voters in key battleground states and districts.”
This comes as Trump and the Republican National Committee are trying to catch up with the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee when it comes to grassroots outreach and Get Out the Vote (GOTV) efforts.
Trump has seen a surge in fundraising since being convicted last week at the first criminal trial of a sitting and former president and is leading Biden in the latest polls in key battleground states that will likely decide the 2024 rematch, but he and the RNC are facing shortfalls when it comes to on the ground efforts.
Get the latest 2024 election campaign updates, exclusive interviews and more on Fox News Digital’s Election Hub.
