The Republican Party has made their "priority" focus a change which Donald Trump has voiced his dislike for.
GOP representatives confirmed they would be pushing for both early and mail-in voting at the midterms next year. Trump has previously aired his dislike for mail-in voting and said he would bar "corrupt" mail voting. This is a pledge he has yet to sign into law, and it seems as though Republican Party members are hoping the president does not interfere with the mail-in rally.
Pennsylvania GOP Chair Greg Rothman told Politico the party would have to evolve and embrace the mail-in voting system should they hope to survive the midterms. He said, "We have to encourage people to embrace mail-in voting and early voting. That has to be a priority for us in 2026."
But the push for mail-in voting, which goes against the wishes of Trump and his rumbling crusade against mail-in votes, comes at a risk of alienating the president from particular ballots. This is not something the GOP can afford, according to conservative activist Cliff Maloney.
He said, "Without Trump on the ballot, the low-propensity problem is an epidemic. Republicans have to adapt or die. The blessing here is that there’s a solution — and the solution is to actually put dollars, cents, time and energy into the same tactics that the left uses to target low-propensity voters."
Trump has made several baseless claims about mail-in votes and the scrutiny of how they are counted and collected. He once suggested Pennsylvania ballots were fraudulent and that postal workers had "purposefully" lost mail-in votes.
Monroe County GOP Chair Todd Gillman remains somewhat skeptical of mail-in voting but believes the party must adapt to the times. He said, "We don’t necessarily like early voting or absentee ballots. But those are the rules we have to play by."
Earlier this year, Trump had made it clear he disliked mail-in votes and went as far as to suggest he would "lead a movement" to get rid of them entirely.
He took to Truth Social and wrote, "I am going to lead a movement to get rid of mail-in ballots, and also, while we’re at it, highly ‘inaccurate, very expensive, and seriously controversial voting machines, which cost ten times more than accurate and sophisticated watermark paper."
"The mail-in ballot hoax, using voting machines that are a complete and total disaster, must end now!"