GOP Scared After Trump Decision

Republicans are divided over President Trump’s renewed push to eliminate mail-in ballots, with some quietly warning the move could actually backfire on the GOP. One Republican operative said, “It wouldn’t be good for Republicans. We’ve worked hard the past couple of years to restore trust in the process, and this would undo a lot of progress.” They added that they hadn’t spoken to anyone in the party who was fully on board with Trump’s idea.

Still, the party’s public face has been one of support. The Republican National Committee praised Trump’s plan, saying the president was “absolutely right” about the need for safe and secure elections. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene also came out strongly in favor, writing on X that mail-in voting has “stolen elections for decades” and insisting it must end to “save America.”

The debate comes even after Republicans found success using mail-in ballots in 2024. Trump and the RNC rolled out a program called “Swamp the Vote USA,” encouraging GOP voters to embrace early and absentee voting. The strategy paid off in key battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, where the percentage of registered Republicans casting ballots by mail jumped from 24 percent in 2020 to 33 percent in 2024. That increase helped Trump flip the state, which he lost in 2020. Red states such as Florida also leaned heavily on mail-in voting, where over 3 million votes were cast by mail, contributing to Trump’s double-digit margin of victory there.

Some Republicans say it makes no sense to abandon a tactic that has proven effective. “It is proven to work,” one GOP operative noted, adding that rolling it back would be a mistake. Even Gov. Ron DeSantis, while careful not to directly oppose Trump, suggested the president was mainly criticizing states that automatically mail ballots to voters, unlike Florida, where voters must request them.

Trump has already tried to curtail mail-in ballots through executive orders, including one earlier this year that would have required proof of citizenship for voter registration and restricted states from counting ballots that arrived after Election Day. That order was quickly blocked in court, raising doubts about whether any new directive would survive legal scrutiny.

Despite Trump’s arguments that states must follow federal orders on elections, the data shows mail-in voting has already been trending downward since the pandemic. Roughly 30 percent of ballots in 2024 were cast by mail, down from 43 percent in 2020, but still higher than pre-2020 levels.

Skeptics within the GOP warn that banning mail-in voting could hurt both parties equally and possibly cost Republicans close races. “Trump says a lot of things, sometimes to test the waters,” one operative said. “But I don’t see many Republicans rushing to embrace this one.”