Starting Friday, North Carolina will allow the first American voters to vote by mail. In the previous election, Donald Trump made mail-in voting a major issue. Is he doing that again?
‘Absolutely. There’s a lot of talk here about mail-in voting and that’s mostly because of Trump. He’s built his lie that he won the 2020 election largely around the idea that there was fraud in mail-in voting.
‘Due to the coronavirus pandemic, mail-in voting increased dramatically in 2020. By the 2022 election, that proportion had declined slightly, but is still much higher than before.
About the author
Daan de Vries is a news reporter from of Volkskrant.
‘That is also the expectation for the upcoming elections: postal voting has now become a permanent part of elections, a bit like online meetings have become part of working life. It is also very practical. The US is a huge country with poor public transport, so for many people this is the most convenient way to vote.
‘That’s a growing problem for Trump and his campaign. The more often he opposes mail-in voting, the greater the chances that some of his supporters won’t take advantage of that option. If those voters aren’t willing to spend hours in the car or stand in line to vote on Election Day, they will lose votes. In some states, a few thousand votes can make the difference between winning and losing.
‘That’s why Trump’s campaign team explicitly encourages people to vote by mail. But Trump himself is wavering on his message. He continues to repeat that mail-in voting causes fraud, as he did last week in an interview with talk show host Dr. Phil.’
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Trump and Harris will debate for the first time on Tuesday. There was much discussion about the terms and rules of the debate. Who was right?
‘Kamala Harris has lost the argument: the non-speaking person’s microphone is off. She is actually screwed by a demand Joe Biden made months ago when this debate was being planned. Biden’s team thought it was a good idea to enforce this rule, against Trump’s wishes. Democrats wanted to prevent Trump from constantly interrupting Biden.
“It later turned out that this was a huge mistake. During the debate with Biden in late June, voters couldn’t hear Trump continuously yelling at Biden because his microphone was off. This made him appear calmer, more focused and more presidential than he actually acted.
The Harris team wants to avoid that. They want to show the chaotic Trump who annoys many voters. Now it was the Trump team that demanded that the old rules be preserved. They don’t trust that their candidate, if allowed to interrupt, will stay within the lines. Harris, a former prosecutor, will also likely come out strong in direct confrontations.”
Due to the dispute over microphones, there has been little talk of the debate over the past few days. Is it already known what Harris and Trump will discuss?
‘There will be no opening statements in the debate, so the content will depend on the statements of the moderators. You can map them out: economy, inflation, immigration, abortion and other conservative legislation. No doubt, there will also be talk of the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.
‘For Harris, migration is a vulnerable point, as is the economy. She will try to reap the benefits of the popular parts of Biden’s policies, without taking the blame for declining purchasing power and problems at the border. That will be an acrobat’s job. For Trump, abortion is a tricky issue. He wants to maintain his credit among conservative voters as the one who abolished the fundamental right to abortion. But I can’t boast too much, because most voters didn’t want that at all.
‘The old election wisdom is that debates ultimately have less influence than you might think given the amount of attention they get. That hasn’t been the case so far in this election. After the debate, Biden had to step down as a candidate. The stakes are also unusually high for Harris. She’s a candidate many voters don’t yet know well, so that moment could be decisive for her and therefore have more influence on the outcome than in previous elections.’
Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney made a remarkable statement on Wednesday: she expressed her support for Kamala Harris. Will Trump be surprised?
‘That’s not entirely unexpected. Because of her criticism of Trump, Cheney has been virtually expelled from the Republican Party. She is one of Trump’s fiercest critics. But most of Trump’s right-wing critics say they simply won’t vote. So Cheney is going one step further. Her influence will be limited, but she has opened the door for other prominent party members to follow suit.
‘Moderate Republican voters are also getting a signal. There is a significant group of Republican voters who were already unhappy with Trump in the previous election. In the end, most of them reluctantly voted for Trump and may do so again this year. But the margins are so incredibly close in this election that every little move can have an impact. All it takes is a few thousand Republicans to think: If I listen to Cheney like this, I can vote Democratic this time too and still call myself a talker.’
“It’s no coincidence that Cheney made this statement at this time, nor is it a coincidence where she did it: in North Carolina, where mail-in voting begins this Friday. North Carolina seemed like a certainty for Republicans for years, but now Democrats sense an opportunity here. They see North Carolina as a new swing state and are now campaigning intensely there.