While the new coronavirus pandemic called into question the safety of in-person voting, leading states to expand eligibility for absentee ballots and mail requests to voters, Trump railed against widespread mail-in voting, saying it could lead to fraud and a rigged election.
Behind the scenes, McCarthy warned Trump that his battle against mail-in voting could backfire. If Republicans who are afraid of getting COVID-19 stay home on Election Day and Democrats utilize mail-in ballots, the GOP could lose down the ballot, he told Axios.
“I tried to show him … you know who is most afraid of COVID? Seniors. And if they’re not going to go vote, period, we’re screwed,” McCarthy said.
During the 2016 presidential election, people over the age of 65, those considered most at-risk for the new coronavirus, voted for Trump by 53 percent, according to Pew Research. A nine percentage point margin over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, polls indicate the GOP could potentially lose a significant portion of the demographic without mail-in voting.
A CNN poll from August showed 39 percent of voters over 65, regardless of political party, would prefer to vote by mail, nearly equal to the percent of the demographic that wants to go to a polling place. When thinking about the election, 43 percent of people over the age of 65 responded to a September Quinnipiac survey they plan to vote by mail, compared to 37 percent who plan on voting in person.
While mail-in voting has become a partisan issue, studies found the practice doesn’t trend toward favoring one party or the other. Brigham Young University political scientist Michael Barber and University of Virginia political scientist John Holbein compared counties that switched to universal mail-in voting in 2018 with 300 counties that didn’t.
Their findings showed a slight uptick of 0.7 percent in votes that went to Democratic candidates. However, Holbein told Science Magazine the difference was within the margin of statistical error. It mirrored results from a June study conducted by researchers at Stanford University, which found a 0.1 percent increase in Democratic voter turnout compared to Republicans.
Along with ensuring seniors cast ballots, there’s at least one example of widespread mail-in voting helping Republicans, McCarthy said during campaign events in Oregon and Utah. In both states, Axios reported he told a story about Mark Garcia’s victory in May.
During a special election, Garcia won by nearly 10 points, marking the first time since 1998 a Republican flipped a Democratic House seat in California. McCarthy told donors in Oregon that people thought it was an “unwinnable” seat and attributed the victory in part to California Governor Gavin Newsom mandating that all ballots be cast by mail.
Trump’s attempted to draw a distinction between absentee voting, where a person has to request a ballot, and mail-in voting where ballots are automatically sent to voters. McCarthy told Axios he agrees with Trump that there’s a distinction, but that most Americans don’t understand it.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
