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If elected to serve a second term in 2025, Donald Trump would make several historic firsts by being voted into office on November 5th of this year. In addition to becoming the first president in U.S. history to be re-elected after being impeached (twice, one might add), Trump would also become the first convicted felon to sit in the Oval Office behind the presidential seal.
His conviction follows a Grand Jury finding him guilty of 34 counts of fraud in the New York “hush money” case, involving violations of U.S. campaign finance laws. This case is the first of four —the other three being the classified documents case in Florida, the Georgia 2020 general election tampering case, and the D.C. U.S. Capitol insurrection case—levelled against the former president, which could determine whether or not he faces imprisonment. In all of these cases, Trump finds himself on the defence, pleading not guilty. Yet, while these four cases have dominated the airwaves, as coverage of Trump’s legal odyssey grabs headlines, Trump and the RNC (Republican National Committee) are on the attack in a case that has received less coverage in the press but reveals a new strategy the former president is considering to utilise in his bid to return to the White House.
Amid the ruckus of the election campaigns, the Republican Party has been testing a refined new strategy ahead of the election. In Nevada, the state Republican Party, with the support of Donald Trump, is seeking to dispute mail-in voter ballot laws, particularly in Washoe and Clark counties. Their complaint? The party is arguing against Nevada’s longstanding law, which allows mail-in ballots received up to three days after Election Day, without a postmark, to be counted. While at first glance it may seem unusual for the Republican Party to take issue with this provision in Nevada law, the case highlights some long-term trends in U.S. electoral politics.
Bryan Tyler-Cohen is a leading pundit on American poltiics. Check out his thoughts on the case
It is widely accepted that in U.S. elections, Democrats have long enjoyed a larger proportion of support in mail-in votes. In both the 2016 and 2020 elections, counties that voted with higher proportions of mail-in ballots were more likely to swing Democrat. Additionally, in battleground states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Florida, this was particularly the case. It appears that by increasing provisions for states to facilitate mail-in votes in 2020, the Democrats had clearly studied the trends among their base and maximized this to secure victories in the Senate and the presidency, as well as partially curb the predicted Red Wall in the 2022 midterm elections. How does this relate to Nevada? In 2020, Biden won both Washoe and Clark counties by 53.66% and 50.82%, respectively. While Republicans may have won the majority of Nevada’s counties, 89% of Nevada’s electorate resides in these two. Win Washoe and Clark by strong margins, and the chances are that you have secured Nevada’s six electoral votes. Given that in the state primary earlier this year, 168,000 Nevadans voted by mail, while 65,000 voted in person, it is clear that there is a strong preference within the state to stay at home on election day.
When we take a step back and examine how all the statistical data interconnects, we can understand why the RNC might have taken such a keen interest in challenging mail-in voting within the state. If the majority of voters vote by mail, and a majority of those mail-in votes lean Democrat, then by trying to reduce the number of mail-in votes counted, Republicans are hoping that the math will turn in their favour. While this might sound like a sound strategy on paper, the court disagreed. In a decision earlier this month, the judge ruled against the plaintiffs, and many within the Democratic Party have praised the decision, arguing that this move is part of a calculated voter-suppression strategy given that this case is the third failed attempt in Nevada to challenge voting laws ahead of the election. Attention now turns to the Nevada Supreme Court, which is expected to hear an appeal of the case by the RNC by the end of the summer. While challenging voting laws isn’t new to the Republican playbook, this new sophisticated tactic of casting aspersions on the legitimacy of mail-in votes is part of a coordinated effort in several states to ultimately make voting by mail more difficult.
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