Donald Trump has changed his tune about mail-in voting in one state and one state only: Florida.
"Nevada has ZERO infrastructure for Mail-In Voting. It will be a corrupt disaster if not ended by the Courts," Trump tweeted Tuesday. On the other hand, "Florida has built a great infrastructure, over years, with two great Republican Governors. Florida, send in your Ballots!"
Huh. Nevada mail-in voting = Corrupt disaster. Florida mail-in voting = Great! What could possibly be going on here?
Oh, look at that—the Real Clear Politics average presently puts Joe Biden at a six-point advantage, with recent polling showing the race tightening some over the last several weeks.
Biden can still win without Florida, but Trump pretty much can't. As CNN analyst Harry Enten pointed out last week after a CNN/SSRS poll found Biden five points ahead there, no Republican has won the presidency without winning Florida in 96 years.
Thus Trump's born-again conversion on mail-in voting in a single state—the one he can't win reelection without.
But Trump's not just tweeting about Florida's mail-in exceptionalism—Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump has a new campaign ad targeting the state, according to The Washington Post's Greg Sargent.
"My father-in-law, President Trump, has always supported absentee voting, with safeguards in place. We want you to know there is a difference between the Democrat-imposed vote-by-mail systems and the vote-by-mail systems you have in Florida," Lara tells all those special Sunshine State voters. She goes to explain they must register and request an absentee ballot, urging them to do so.
It is true that not all states are created equal when it comes to voting by mail (or absentee voting, which is effectively the same thing) but not for the reasons Trump is selling. His incredibly transparent ruse is to suggest that fraud is rampant in states that either mail out applications for ballots or actually mail out ballots themselves, which only happens in a handful of states.
That distinction is nothing but a figment of Trump's altered reality. Some states have, however, developed better infrastructure for vote-by-mail because they've been doing it for longer. Oregon, for instance, has conducted elections entirely by mail since 1998. As the state's GOP Secretary of State Beverly Clarno recently told 60 Minutes: "Try it, you might like it."
Well, suddenly Trump likes mail-in voting—for Florida. Sorry, Oregon, you're just a little too blue to properly execute something you've already been doing for two-plus decades.
At least Trump is as unsubtle as he is dumb.