Former President Donald Trump’s team has cited early voting data suggesting a victory for their candidate on Tuesday.
Trump’s team shared a memo from the former president’s chief data consultant, Tim Saler, using Democrats‘ own data to argue that a Trump victory was likely.
“With Early Voting closed and Election Day on the horizon, Democrats are facing a massive turnout deficit.” he wrote. “In every single battleground state, we see President Trump and Republicans outperforming elections past in absentee ballots and early votes cast. As we dive deeper into the data, Democrats are facing a precipitous decline in urban turnout according to their own ‘data experts’ and we are tracking an uptick in rural turnout.”
Saler pointed to statements of alarm from Democrats, including former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, who said that the early vote numbers were “a little scary,” and chief Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, who said there was no guarantee voters would show up to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris on Election Day.
He also cited NBC News data predicting that on Election Day, voters would favor Trump 56%-40%.
“Democrats are spinning themselves and reporters by claiming that their voters will turn out on Election Day when polls show otherwise and, most importantly, that’s asking Democrat voters to do something they have absolutely no history of doing,” Saler wrote. “If Democrats, who historically vote ahead of Election Day, haven’t been motivated to show up for Kamala yet, why do we expect them to show up tomorrow?
“President Donald J. Trump is going into Election Day stronger than he has in any previous election and if patriots across the country keep the momentum and turn out as expected on Election Day, we will be swearing in President Trump in January,” he concluded.
The memo shared data, compiled by Democrats, showing lower turnout among women and urban voters — two Democratic strongholds. Urban turnout was down by the hundreds of thousands in every swing state compared to the same point in 2020, while women’s turnout was similarly down by hundreds of thousands in nearly all swing states.
On the flip side, rural turnout, which favors Republicans, was up in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina.
The biggest change was seen in Pennsylvania, where urban voter turnout was down 381,519 compared to the same point in 2020, while female turnout was down 450,802.
Despite the optimism from Trump’s team, other analysts found reason for skepticism. Political consultant Liz Mair speculated that the release of the memo signaled insecurity.
“The fact that they’re issuing this memo tells you they don’t think they’re in as good a position going into tomorrow as they want you to believe,” she wrote.
And it is not clear that early voting numbers are guaranteed to be accurate predictors of final results.
“We’ve got some early voting data that’s rolling in right now, it looks like enthusiasm is up, but Republicans are enthusiastic,” Chuck Coughlin, an independent and the CEO and president of the Phoenix-based HighGround, told the Washington Examiner. “They’re outperforming themselves from ’20 you know, when Trump had the narrative going on about don’t mail your ballot in it’s fraud. They seem to have overcome that objection now.
“It seems like Republicans are participating at a higher rate now, and it seems like the turnout is a bit higher,” Coughlin said.
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Republicans had previously embraced early voting but reversed their support after Trump expressed vehement opposition in 2020. The former president reluctantly stepped back from his previous criticism, encouraging Republicans to vote early in 2024.
Trump’s encouragement has paid off, with Republican early votes even surpassing those of Democrats in several swing states, such as Nevada.
Hailey Bullis contributed to this report.