Harris and Trump look for an early-voting edge in battleground campaigns

By: Washington Times - Politics Posted On: October 20, 2024 View: 0

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The election is already underway across much of the U.S., including most of the battleground states, and Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have kicked their early-voting drive into high gear.

With just over two weeks until Election Day, both sides see reasons to be optimistic about early voting breaking their way in the seven battleground states where polls show the race is a toss-up.

“If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole damn thing,” Mr. Trump said in a get-out-the-early-vote pitch in the Keystone State.

“You have to tell Kamala Harris that you’ve had enough, that you just can’t take it anymore,” Mr. Trump said at a rally Saturday in Latrobe, a town of about 8,000 roughly 40 miles east of Pittsburgh. “We can’t stand you. … You’re the worst vice president, Kamala, you’re fired. Get the hell out of here.”

In Detroit, Mr Trump jokingly urged women in the crowd to get their “fat pig” husbands “off the couch” to vote.

Ms. Harris employed a more delicate message in Georgia, where turnout is breaking records. Over a million votes were cast within days of the start of early voting last week.

“Georgia, now is our time to act. The baton is in our hands … early voting has already started,” Ms. Harris said at a rally Saturday outside of Atlanta with R&B star Usher, who attended high school in the area.

On Sunday, Ms. Harris attended New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Georgia, and told the predominately Black congregation to use their faith to decide how to cast their ballots.

“Where we go from here is up to us as Americans and as people of faith,” she said. “And now … we face this question — what kind of country do we want to live in? A country of chaos, fear and hate, or a country of freedom, compassion and justice?”

Early voting has begun in five swing states: Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Nevada. Voters can start casting early ballots in Wisconsin on Tuesday and Michigan on Saturday.

Nationally, Democrats have the edge over Republicans in early voting. Of the 12.5 million ballots cast early, 56.5 million or 52% are from Democratic voters, and 4.9 million or 39.7% are from Republican voters as of Sunday, according to data analyzed by TargetSmart.

In Georgia, Trump’s campaign is confident that GOP voters are all in on early voting, which wasn’t the case in 2020 when Mr. Trump disparaged mail-in and other forms of early voting.

“We think it is going quite well. We think that there is — as of the third day [of early voting] about a 23-point swing in our favor from the same point in 2020,” said James Blair, the Trump campaign political director.

He noted the share of White voters is up, and the share of Black voters is down.

As of Saturday, 1.3 million votes had been cast in Georgia, which accounts for 19% of the state’s voters.

On Tuesday, the first day of early voting, more than 310,000 votes were cast in person, more than double the number of voters who showed up on the first day of early voting in 2020. That year, President Biden beat Mr. Trump by just over 11,000 votes in Georgia, the first time since 1992 that the Democrat had won the presidential election in the state.

Josh McKoon, chair of the Georgia GOP, said the early Black vote totals help explain why Ms. Harris plans to campaign Thursday with former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama in the Peach Tree State.

“Those are pretty big red flags,” Mr. McKoon told The Washington Times. “You know, if your turnout game is working, you don’t have to have your candidate and one of your top surrogates in the same place at the same time.”

The counties with the highest turnout on the first day of early voting were won by Democrats four years ago, including Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett — all some of the most urban and Democratic areas in Georgia.

However, since then, the counties with the highest turnouts have been places where Mr. Trump won overwhelmingly in the last election, according to state data.

Towns County, a rural area bordering South Carolina, led the state as of Friday evening, with nearly 30% of active voters casting a ballot. Mr. Trump won the county with 80% of the vote in 2020.

Rabin County, another rural area in the northern part of the state, has had the second-highest turnout, with more than 25% of voters casting a ballot so far. In 2020, Mr. Trump won 62.8% of the vote there, compared to 36.3% of the voters who backed Mr. Biden.

Among the counties that Mr. Biden won in 2020, Baldwin County, which sits near Macon, had the highest early voting turnout, with 19% of voters showing up as of Friday.

Voters do not have to register by party in Georgia.

• Mallory Wilson contributed to this report.

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