The Trump campaign on Tuesday announced a new program aimed at promoting absentee, mail-in and early in-person voting – practices that former President Donald Trump has disparaged for years while promoting false claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
The new effort, dubbed “Swamp The Vote USA,” comes as Republican officials ramp up calls for their voter base to embrace early voting and vote by mail options ahead of November’s election. The new initiative is part of “Trump Force 47,” which is sponsored by the Republican National Committee and is focused on turning out voters in battleground states.
It marks a sharp reversal from Trump’s repeated calls to end the practice of mail-in voting altogether and his discouragement of Republicans from voting any other way but at the polls on Election Day.
“Republicans must win and we will use every appropriate tool to beat the Democrats because they are destroying our country. Whether you vote absentee, by mail, early in-person or on election day, we are going to protect the vote. We make sure your ballot is secure and your voice is heard,” Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said in a statement Tuesday.
After being projected the winner of the Iowa caucuses in January, Trump had declared in his victory speech: “We have to get rid of mail-in ballots because once you have mail-in ballots, you have crooked elections.”
And Trump, after becoming the presumptive nominee, said in an interview with Britain’s GB News in March that “any time the mail is involved, you’re going to have cheating.”
But as Republican officials urge the former president to embrace the voting methods ahead of November, Trump has made conflicting statements on the voting practices, oscillating between casting doubt and encouraging them.
Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social last month, “ABSENTEE VOTING, EARLY VOTING, AND ELECTION DAY VOTING ARE ALL GOOD OPTIONS. REPUBLICANS MUST MAKE A PLAN, REGISTER, AND VOTE!”
The Trump-backed chairman of the RNC, Michael Whatley, has said encouraging Republican voters to vote early and by mail are “top priorities” this election cycle. Lara Trump, the co-chair of the RNC and Trump’s daughter-in-law, has also publicly advocated for the GOP to embrace the practices.
The new program builds on the RNC’s “Bank Your Vote” campaign that was launched last year. The video announcing the initiative at the time included comments from Trump in support of it.
