President Trump's new campaign manager Bill Stepien on Monday expressed concern about voters receiving their mail ballots as early as late September, echoing GOP strategists who believe Trump is operating on an accelerated timeline to regain momentum before Election Day on Nov. 3.
Stepien wants to counter the expected nationwide surge in mail-in voting by holding more debates, but that likely wouldn't fix another potential looming problem for his campaign that may be, in part, Trump's own doing. Per The Washington Post, Trump's repeated attacks on mail-in voting, which he argues will lead to mass voter fraud, is discouraging Republicans from utilizing the practice and could threaten party turnout. A Monmouth University poll taken in July found that 60 percent of Democrats would at least consider voting by mail, compared to just 28 percent of Republicans.
In any other year, that might not be such a big deal. Sure, weather and forgetfulness could always prevent someone from going to the polls on Election Day, Politico notes, but the threat of a coronavirus outbreak is looming over this year's election and could keep more people at home than usual, which is partly why Democrats are pushing for more mail-in voting.
Republican strategists are hoping Trump rolls back some of his criticism, or at least makes it more specific, going forward, so Republicans don't refuse to vote absentee if they need to. "It is a problem," one GOP strategist in North Carolina told the Post. "The president has oversimplified the issue to criticize the method of voting, rather than the way it's done." Read more at The Washington Post.