Republicans are defying President Donald Trump and embracing mail-in voting as they seek any possible advantage ahead of a feared 2026 midterm electoral wipeout.
GOP officials in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are preparing a campaign blitz to encourage voters to sign up for mail-in ballots, with the Republican National Committee also hoping to build on its early mail and in-person voting efforts from the 2024 election, Politico reported.
Republicans’ embrace of mail-in voting—something Trump has railed against for years while falsely claiming it helped “rig” the 2020 election against him—comes amid growing expectations that the party could suffer major defeats next November. Party officials hope the strategy will boost turnout among low-propensity Republican voters who may not bother with elections when Trump’s name is not on the ballot.
“Democrats have built a pretty massive structural advantage in early voting for a long, long time. And we just can’t keep going into election night 100,000 votes down and expect to make it up in 12 hours,” Wisconsin GOP Chair Brian Schimming told Politico. “Treating early voting as optional, or something Democrats do, is a losing gamble.”
The 79-year-old president continues to falsely claim he won the 2020 election against Joe Biden but that the results were “rigged” due to widespread voter fraud involving mail-in ballots. Trump has even vowed to ban mail-in voting ahead of the 2026 midterms, posting an unhinged Truth Social post in August claiming the move was necessary because Democrats “CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE.”
Trump has never provided evidence that the 2020 election, which saw record absentee voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was “stolen” through voter fraud, despite pushing the debunked claim for more than five years.
In an act of defiance against the lame-duck president, factions of the GOP are now betting that embracing mail-in voting could help them avoid losing control of the House and possibly even the Senate in the 2026 midterms.
Citizens Alliance, which helped Republicans expand mail-in voting in Pennsylvania during the 2024 election, plans to knock on 750,000 doors to persuade unreliable voters to embrace a practice historically favored by Democrats, according to Politico.
Michigan’s Monroe County GOP has already run a social media campaign encouraging Republicans to vote absentee and plans to ramp up its digital outreach in 2026. Wisconsin Republicans are also preparing an aggressive push involving door-knocking, digital ads, phone calls, and email outreach.
The strategy appeared to pay off in Pennsylvania during the 2024 presidential election, after Republicans spent $16 million encouraging voters to cast mail-in ballots. Trump managed to flip the Keystone State after GOP voters cast 32.4 percent of mail ballots, up from 23.7 percent in 2020.
“We have to encourage people to embrace mail-in voting and early voting,” Pennsylvania GOP Chair Greg Rothman said. “That has to be a priority for us in 2026.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
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