Trump's messaging backfires as GOP ballot requests slump in Pennsylvania

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Erie, Pa.

New data on mail-in ballot requests in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania show Democrats far outpacing Republicans. The New York Times reports, citing data from the Pennsylvania secretary of state’s office, that so far Democrats have requested about 881,000 mail ballots. That is more than twice the 373,000 ballots requested by Republicans.

Pennsylvania has 19 electoral votes which are critical to the 270 needed to win the presidency. Donald Trump had a surprise victory in the state in 2016, but President Joe Biden won the election there in 2020 by 1.17 percentage points (80,555 votes). More than 2.6 million of the votes cast in the state in the last presidential election were mailed in due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current tally of requests is a disappointing early sign for Republicans, who have invested in early voting efforts. The blame likely falls on the party’s own presidential nominee, who has spent years attacking early voting and promoting conspiracy theories around the years-old process.

“The mail-in voting isn't working. It's corrupt,” Trump said at a July rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

At another rally that month in Johnston, Pennsylvania, Trump said, “We want to go to paper ballots. We want to go to same-day voting. We want to go to citizenship papers. And we want to go to voter ID. It's very simple. We want to get rid of mail-in voting.”

The voters Republicans need the most have been following Trump’s lead instead of responding to the party’s outreach efforts.

Tom Eddy, a Republican Party county chair in Erie County, Pennsylvania, told NBC News in April, that voters rejected mail-in ballots when he offered it to them.

“Every one of them said either, ‘No, that’s not the right way to vote,’ or ‘Trump does not agree with it,’” Eddy said.

A Pew poll from May showed that only 37% of Republicans support early or absentee voting, a significant decline from the 57% who backed the practice in 2018. Democrats were far more supportive of early voting, with 82% in favor, virtually unchanged from the 83% who backed it six years ago.

In addition to Trump’s rhetoric, conservative media outlets like Fox News have also frequently promoted falsehoods about mail-in voting. Following its activities promoting election-related conspiracy theories in 2020, Fox struck a $787 million payout settlement to voting services company Dominion Voting Systems.

Fraud associated with mail-in voting is extremely rare and rhetoric promoting claims of mail-in voter fraud are usually associated with efforts to suppress the vote.

Aggregate polling of Pennsylvania has shown Vice President Kamala Harris with a small lead, and an AARP poll released Oct. 1, showed Harris polling in the state at 50% with likely voters, ahead of Trump, who had support from 47% of respondents.