This article was reprinted with permission from Virginia Mercury.
With early voting now underway in Virginia, former President Donald Trump appears to have warmed up to the practice of sending out mail-in ballots to voters for the November general election — a position contrary to his many deprecatory comments regarding mail-in voting.
“In this election we must use every appropriate tool to beat the radical left Democrats, that’s why I am urging every Virginia patriot to vote early, and don’t wait,” Trump said during a telephone rally hosted by Gov. Glenn Youngkin Sunday evening. “You’ve heard a lot about voting by mail, but that’s what we have right now.”
On the 15-minute call, Trump asked Republican voters to cast their ballots “either by mail, early in person or on Election Day.”
“We have long term voting, we used to have one day, paper ballots, all the things that you know we want to do, but you’re in the first group and I am asking you to get your friends, get your family, get everyone you know and make a plan to vote for Trump,” the GOP’s presidential nominee said.
Virginia is one of just three states — the other two being Minnesota and South Dakota — where early voting started on Friday, 45 days before the Nov. 5 election. At least 59,686 Virginians have since cast their ballots as of Sunday evening, according to data from the Virginia Public Access Project.
With just 895 returned ballots, mail-in voting marked just a fraction of the total number of votes cast by that time.
Trump has consistently spoken against mail-in voting on the campaign trail while spouting conspiracy theories and falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election that he lost to Democrat Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes had been stolen from him.
“Mail-in voting is totally corrupt. Get that through your head. It has to be,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan in February. And during an interview with the British GB News in March, he asserted that “anytime the mail is involved, you’re going to have cheating.”
Trump’s cautious embrace of early and mail-in voting aligns with the GOP’s slow acceptance of a practice that has expanded the tent of voters nationwide in recent years and proven to be beneficial for increasing turnout on both sides of the aisle.
“Both campaigns are really talking about the election in apocalyptic terms, and this is really motivating voters,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington.
“Early voting absolutely works for campaigns; you don’t have to worry about getting voters to the polls on Election Day. If the ballot is locked in at election time, it gets a lot easier, and election officials can focus on voters who haven’t made it to the polls,” Farnsworth said
During Sunday’s telephone rally, Trump rattled off a list of different ways for Virginians to cast their ballots early.
“Every county in Virginia has at least one early voting location, so that’s important to know. Most counties have early voting Monday through Friday. Any registered Virginia voter can get out and vote as early as possible, you can vote tomorrow,” he said.
Trump said that he could be the first Republican presidential candidate to carry Virginia since President George W. Bush won his reelection bid in 2004.
“Because if we are really going at it, we have a really good chance to win Virginia, there hasn’t been one in decades by a presidential candidate,” he said.
Trump still faces an uphill battle in the commonwealth, where he trails Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, by 10 percentage points, according to a Morning Consult poll conducted between Aug. 30 and Sept. 8.
But a more recent survey by the University of Mary Washington released last week found that the race has since tightened, with Harris leading Trump with just 48 to 46% in a two-way contest, within the poll’s margin of error.
Virginia Democrats, however, pushed back against the narrative that the presidential race in the commonwealth was competitive.
“While Trump is literally phoning it in here in Virginia, Team Harris-Walz and Virginia Democrats are turning unmatched enthusiasm into action, highlighting the stark contrast between Vice President Harris’ new way forward and Trump’s extreme Project 2025 agenda that would give him unchecked control over our daily lives,” said Virginia Democratic Party chair Susan Swecker.
Harris has yet to campaign in the commonwealth as the Democratic presidential nominee. Her husband, Douglas Emhoff, is set to visit Charlottesville on Wednesday.
Also on Sunday’s call, Youngkin reiterated that elections in Virginia are safe and that voters can trust the process.
“We have paper ballots, we have counting machines, not voting machines, lockboxes are under 24-7 security, and we have a great process to make sure that the ballots are not only kept but custody is clear. And finally, noncitizens will be prosecuted if they vote,” he said.
