At a campaign rally last weekend, donald trump highlighted a local Republican Party official in Delaware for the compliments. This wouldn’t have been especially notable except if the former president claimed the official did the right thing by “getting rid of mail-in voting.”
Factually, Trump’s comments weren’t entirely true, but he still made it clear that he continues to oppose people voting absentee by mail. This was, however, something of a reversal: just two years earlier, the presumptive Republican nominee released a video online, in which he specifically praised “absentee voting” and “early voting.”
This, however, was the opposite of what he told Newsmax’s Greg Kelly two weeks earlier when Trump called for eliminating early voting altogether. “You know, it used to be Election Day,” the Republican candidate said. “Now it’s… 48 days; 48 days of cheating.” He went on to endorse the “one-day vote.”
Six days earlier, Trump said the opposite, publishing a message to its online social media platform endorsing “absentee voting” and “early voting.”
In other words, between April 19 and May 11, the former president was in favor, against, in favor and again against absentee voting.
These incoherent changes were continuing for a long time. After the 2022 midterm elections, for example, Trump he wrote via social media, “YOU CAN NEVER HAVE A FAIR AND FREE ELECTION WITH mail-in ballots – NEVER, NEVER, NEVER.” (In case that was too subtle, a day later, the Republican republished the missive, adding“NEVER!”)
For a while, it seemed that party leaders who had the former president’s ear were able to nudge him in a more sensible direction. In February 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported, “After years of attacking early voting, Donald Trump is changing his mind.” The article referenced a recent fundraising appeal that the Trump team sent to donors, which said that the way forward for Republicans “is to DOMINATE the Democrats’ own game.”
A month later, the former president counted attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference that it was time for Republicans to “change our thinking” about early and mail-in voting. In July 2023, Trump reached filmed a video to the Republican National Committee in support of the party’s early voting initiative.
And then he returned to his other position.
“Mail voting is completely corrupt. Get that in your head,” Trump declared a few months ago, ignoring his party’s message. “It has to be. The votes. I mean, it has to be.
Is it any wonder that the Republican base has absolutely no idea what to think?
All things considered, Trump appears to have changed more on absentee and mail-in voting than on any other issue. What will his position be on this tomorrow? I won’t venture a guess, but if recent history is any guide, it will be the opposite of what he says right after.
This post updates our related previous coverage.
This article was originally published in MSNBC.com
