Not only is the 2024 presidential election weirder than we imagine, but it is weirder than we can imagine. Former President Donald Trump enjoys an insurmountable 22-point lead... among people who don't vote. Presidentish Joe Biden has an insurmountable nine-point lead among those who do. This is all according to Interactive Polls.
Let me tell you why that might be a winning formula for Trump.
Trump changed everything in 2016. Mail-in balloting changed everything again in 2020. 2024 brings a rerun race between the two most polarizing candidates maybe ever — and voter interest is lower than it's been in 20 years. "Low voter interest and the independent candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could scramble what has been a stable presidential contest with more than six months until Election Day," NBC News reported on Sunday.
The Republic is on the line, and people don't care. How about that?
University of Florida professor Michael McDonald (not the former Doobie Brothers frontman) noted, "We likely won’t see the exceptional 2020 turnout in 2024. This matters because Trump appears to have a problem energizing beyond his hardcore base as moving from all adults or registered voters to likely voters tends to shift polls towards Biden." But the old adults/registered voters/likely voters polling distribution isn't the story any longer.
"More data showing Trump needs a lot of unreliable/low-propensity voters to win. It requires organization, professionalism, and resources to identify, reach, and turn these people out," my Townhall colleague Guy Benson reminded Twitter/X readers on Sunday. "That’s not the GOP/Trump campaign’s *only* job over the next six months or so, but it’s close."
But turnout isn't the only game in town.
Mail-in voting — and its associated crime, ballot harvesting — makes every registered voter a likely voter if the party does the work to make it happen. "Get out the vote" is so passé. The ballots go out, regardless. The trick is getting them back in, appropriately marked.
The GOP must become a ballot-harvesting machine, and there are signs of life on that front, although it won't be easy.
As conservatives, we believe there is an Election Day and, on that day, concerned Americans show up to vote and present a photo ID to do so. But the rules have changed, in no small part because Trump in 2020 signed the CARES Act into law, making mail-in voting easier. Then Trump spent the actual campaign disparaging mail-in voting.
(Yes, Trump always makes things more difficult for himself. It's his way. We can either gripe about it or we put our shoulders to the wheel.)
Trump has finally switched gears on mail-in voting. "Absentee voting, early voting, and election day voting are all good options," the former president wrote on Truth Social on Friday. "Republicans must make a plan, register, and vote!"
We're in a very strange situation where high voter turnout helps the Republican nominee, the ballots go out automatically, but GOP voters often remain resistant to the new reality of mail-in votes.
But the ballots will go out. Trump has an insurmountable lead with the people who are going to need help and encouragement filling them out. All we need to do is the work.
Exit Question: What will Democrats do to suppress voter turnout now that high turnout likely helps Trump, and how will they excuse their voter suppression effort as "saving democracy?"
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