'Triage mode': GOP strategists warn 'cognitive dissonance' with Trump threatens RNC cash flow

03 April 2024

For many years, absentee voting was widely regarded as a conservative Republican activity.

Urban Democrats, in the past, generally preferred voting in person. And when California was still a red state back in the 1970s and 1980s, GOP officials encouraged absentee voting — which they believed was helpful to conservative Republican Gov. George Deukmejian when he defeated Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in the state's 1982 gubernatorial election.

But in 2020, then-President Donald Trump claimed, without evidence, that voting by mail was a recipe for widespread voter fraud. And Trump is still making that claim four years later.

In an article published on April 3, Daily Beast reporters Sam Brodey and Reese Gorman detail the battle between Trump and GOP officials who would like to see mail-in voting expanded.

"Despite GOP plans, funding, and enthusiasm to persuade Trump voters that casting their ballots early or by mail is safe," Brodey and Gorman explain, "the cognitive dissonance among Republicans has never been more glaring. That's because it's increasingly clear no one can persuade Trump himself."

During a campaign rally in Michigan on February 27, Trump told the crowd, "Mail-in voting is totally corrupt. Get that through your head."

That same month, Trump told Fox News' Laura Ingraham, "If you have mail-in voting, you automatically have fraud…. If you have it, you're going to have fraud."

According to Brodey and Gorman, GOP "officials and strategists" who favor mail-in voting "almost never directly contradict or challenge the former president."

However, Pennsylvania-based Republican strategist Guy Ciarrocchi told the Beast, "If you're a loyal and passionate Republican, if you feel strongly, vote by mail…. Snow, wind, power outage, your car's stuck, you have to pick up your mom — bank your vote so you don't have to worry about it."

Another Republican strategist, presumably interviewed on condition of anonymity, lamented that GOP efforts to promote mail-in voting will continue to be at a disadvantage as long as Trump is raging against it.

The strategist told the Beast, "It's hard to have that credibility when it doesn't come from the top —especially when you talk about how much the Trump campaign and the RNC are one…. There's likely to be a cash crunch very soon when it comes to our side — what gets cut first? You're gonna be in triage mode."

Read The Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).

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