Republicans made up about 26% of mail ballots in Pa. despite Trump’s attacks — and the GOP is glad

The GOP share of mail ballots in Pennsylvania increased slightly in last week’s primary, after months of efforts from party leaders to overcome years of negative messaging.

According to data from the Pennsylvania Department of State, GOP voters accounted for roughly 26% of the mail ballots returned to election offices by 8 p.m. on primary night last week.

The number, a modest increase on previous years, left GOP activists cautiously optimistic that their messaging is working. But they say more needs to be done before voters go to the polls in November.

In the last three primary elections, Republican voters have requested about 22% of mail ballots. Republicans have continued to use vote by mail less than Democrats in the wake of the 2020 election, when former President Donald Trump falsely claimed mail ballots led to election fraud. Party leaders in Pennsylvania are now working to change that trend, hoping it will help them turn out more voters in November.

Last week’s 26% showed some of those leaders that their message is beginning to work.

“We consider this to be significant but we still have a long way to go.” said Arnaud Armstrong, the executive director of Win Again PAC, which is focused on convincing Republicans to vote by mail. “This is the first real significant sign of improvement that we as Republicans have seen period on this issue.”

That messaging, however, is consistently undermined as Trump continues to cast doubt on mail voting.

Last month Trump falsely claimed “any time the mail is involved, you’re going to have cheating.”

Since the Pennsylvania approved universal voting by mail with bipartisan legislation in 2019, Democrats across the state have embraced the method.

The June 2020 primary was the first election in which the state’s voters could vote by mail, and voters used it to avoid in-person polls during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it also became an effective way for organizers to encourage voters to get their votes cast early and conveniently, in hopes of increasing turnout because voters don’t risk an emergency keeping them from the polls on Election Day.

But at the same time, GOP distrust of mail voting deepened as Trump consistently claimed without proof that the method would lead to fraud.

Last year, Pennsylvania Republicans began trying to turn the tide with the state party running a “bank your vote” campaign in the state Supreme Court race. That year, Republicans had 25% of mail ballots in the general election and 22% in the primary. Those efforts continued this year.

“We’re going to go all out, we’ve started to do it,” Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Lawrence Tabas said at a campaign event last week. “We’re going to have a larger number of mail-in ballots than we’ve ever had. It will contribute to the victory. If you want to win, mail it in, that’s our message to our Republican voters.”

Tabas and others argue that for too long Democrats have held an extreme advantage over Republicans in mail voting.

In the 2020 primary election Republicans submitted 27% of the mail ballots in the state. But following Trump’s unfounded claims of fraud, that number plummeted in the 2021 primary election to just 21% and 22% in the following two years.

Christian Nascimento, chair of the Montgomery County Republican Party, said the increase this year was proof that the new messaging is working.

“We were able to get that message across that voting by mail to level the playing field is important,” he said. But he worried that work was undermined during the primary when ballots arrived late in Montgomery County, causing officials to heavily emphasize the use of drop boxes to return ballots rather than sending them through the mail. Republicans, led by Trump, have been critical and skeptical of drop boxes, despite no evidence that they lead to voter fraud.

Armstrong said increased turnout by mail is essential for Republicans to win in swing states like Pennsylvania, where the general election between Trump and President Joe Biden is expected to be very close. Voters, he said, will and should still vote in person. But mail voting is a powerful tool to encourage turnout among those who are less likely to vote and more likely to forget to turn out on Election Day or be turned away by bad weather or traffic.

To get voters to that point, he said, “you have to untangle a knot.”

“One message does not sufficiently address three or four years of information and messaging coming in the opposite direction on this,” Armstrong said. “The best way we have found to address that is person-to-person contact, getting people to engage people in their community to have that discussion.”

Armstrong said he isn’t asking people to like the mail voting law, but to acknowledge its usefulness and to trust a mail ballot cast by a Republican. But his messaging leaves room for ongoing GOP skepticism about mail ballots, because he said he’s not asking Republicans to trust a Democrat with a mail ballot.

Tabas predicted the mail ballot would result in “a larger, much larger turnout of new voters, people who haven’t voted.”

Armstrong said he would love if Trump publicly encouraged mail voting. With that unlikely to happen, he pointed to a social media post last week when the former president called absentee voting a good option, as a good sign.

“He’s moving in the right direction and I know a lot of people are having this conversation,” he said.

Aliya Schneider contributed to this article.