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Former President Trump has urged Republicans to “use all appropriate tools to defeat the Democrats,” and leading GOP candidates have said that includes early and absentee voting.
The former president's 2024 presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee announced the launch of the effort, dubbed “Swamp The Vote USA,” on Tuesday.
This is a marked shift from Trump's stance four years ago, when he repeatedly denounced early voting and mail-in voting, claiming they were responsible for massive election fraud that led to his defeat by President Biden.
“Republicans must win. Democrats are destroying our country and we will use every appropriate tool to defeat them,” Trump said in a statement.
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Former President Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, on May 11, 2024. (Hannah Beyer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
He then emphasized, “Whether you vote absentee, by mail, early or on Election Day, we will protect your vote. We will make sure your vote is safe and your voice is heard. We must overwhelm the Radical Democrats with a massive vote. The way to win is to overwhelm them. If we overwhelm them with the vote, they can't cheat. You must make a plan, register, vote in any way you can. We must get your vote.”
In the past few elections, Democrats have voted early in greater numbers than Republicans, while Republicans tend to turn out in greater numbers on Election Day in November.
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While President Trump has long opposed early voting, a year ago the Republican National Committee, led by former chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, launched a campaign to promote early voting called “Bank the Vote.”
The Trump campaign emphasized on Tuesday that “Swamp The Vote USA is the successor to the Republican National Committee's Bank Your Vote program.”
People wait to vote outside the Bordeaux Library on the first day of early voting in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 14, 2020. (Photo by Mark Humphrey/AP)
President Trump's position on early voting has been unclear in recent months.
At a rally in Michigan three months ago, Trump told supporters that early voting was “totally fraudulent” and a “hoax.”
And at a rally in Pennsylvania in April, the former president likened early voting to “stealing the vote.”
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At a mass rally in New Jersey last month, President Trump said “most mail-in ballots are fraudulent.”
But at the event, he urged his supporters to “vote absentee, vote by mail, vote early or vote on Election Day.”
And he stressed the importance of early voting several times in social media posts.
Former President Trump holds a rally in the historically Democratic South Bronx neighborhood of New York City on May 23, 2024. (Spencer Pratt/Getty Images)
The Biden campaign highlighted Trump's policy reversal on early voting.
“Donald Trump told his supporters as recently as February that mail-in voting was 'totally fraudulent' and last September proposed eliminating it altogether. For years, Trump has claimed that early and mail-in voting is 'fraudulent', 'rigged' and 'rigged.' His campaign apparently doesn't think so. Trump needs to own up to the lies he's been telling about voting and elections for years,” campaign spokesman James Singer told Fox News.
The Trump campaign said the new effort to promote early voting is part of the recently announced Trump Force 47, a neighborhood-to-neighbor grassroots organizing program between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee that is “focused on mobilizing targeted voters in key battleground states and districts.”
This comes as Trump and the Republican National Committee are trying to catch up with the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee when it comes to grassroots outreach and Get Out the Vote (GOTV) efforts.
Trump has seen a surge in fundraising since being convicted last week at the first criminal trial of a sitting and former president and is leading Biden in the latest polls in key battleground states that will likely decide the 2024 rematch, but he and the RNC are facing shortfalls when it comes to on the ground efforts.
The Biden campaign says it has hired more than 500 staffers and opened more than 175 outreach offices in battleground states.
And in Pennsylvania, one of six states that Biden narrowly won in 2020 to take the White House, the president's reelection campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the state party have 24 coordinated offices and hundreds of staffers.
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The Pennsylvania native has made numerous official visits and campaign events in the state, particularly in Philadelphia, since launching his reelection campaign more than a year ago, and last week Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned together in Philadelphia for the first time.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris wave during a campaign event at Girard College in Philadelphia, Wednesday, May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Rep. Welzie Hunt of Texas, a military veteran and surrogate for Trump, traveled to Philadelphia on Tuesday to attend the opening of the former president's first campaign office in Pennsylvania, a key Northeastern battleground state.
“The man who will rise and lead this country back from the brink is Donald John Trump,” Hunt, a Black Republican and a rising star in the GOP, told supporters and reporters packed into his small office in the city's northeast corner.
“We have a little bit of catching up to do, but we intend to open offices across Pennsylvania,” Vince Fennerty, Philadelphia's Republican Party chairman and ward president for more than 50 years, told Fox News.
But Fenati stressed that “we have time to catch up. People are jumping on the Trump train, and the locomotive will move fast.”
“I campaigned in this part of city because it's ethnically and racially diverse, and I want to start here because I want to build a broad coalition of Americans who support President Trump,” Fenerty said.
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Philadelphia is overwhelmingly Democratic, and Biden won the city four years ago, beating Trump 81% to 18%.
But in an interview with Fox News, Hunt stressed that “we are going boldly where Republicans haven't gone in the last 20 or 30 years. We're not trying to catch up, we're fishing where the fish are.”
“We know that we've made great strides in the black community and among Hispanic men and women,” Hunt added, “so now we're not here to catch up, we're here to put the final nail in the coffin.”
Republican Congressman Wesley Hunt of Texas will headline the opening of Pennsylvania's first Trump campaign office in Philadelphia on June 4, 2024. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
Kellan White, a senior adviser to the Pennsylvania Democratic campaign, fired back, telling Fox News, “Donald Trump is a convicted felon and could not find real Pennsylvanians to star in his fake events.”
He then accused Trump of “running a racist campaign for years as president, implementing racist policies and hurting Black communities every chance he got. In stark contrast, Joe Biden has fought and achieved results for Pennsylvanians, especially Black Pennsylvanians, by capping insulin costs for seniors at $35 a month, creating more than 500,000 good paying jobs in Pennsylvania alone, and protecting our democracy and reproductive freedom.”
Earlier this spring, some Keystone State Republicans complained about a lack of ground work by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.
But Lehigh County Republican Committeeman Bobby Arenas told Fox News on Tuesday that “things are changing for the better,” pointing to “additional support on the ground and offices opening across the state.”
Get the latest 2024 campaign updates, exclusive interviews and more on Fox News Digital's Election Hub.