The Texas GOP and Sen. Ted Cruz are pushing for more Republicans to vote early this year, even as former President Donald Trump calls for limiting elections to a single day.
The state party and Cruz launched a new campaign called “Deploy Your Vote” last week. It urges Republicans — who are less likely to vote early and less confident in mail-in voting than Democrats — to utilize the state’s early-voting measures.
“In Texas, we do elections the right way, and we have folks on the front lines who will protect your early vote,” Cruz says in a video on the site.
Republicans at the state level have stepped in to encourage early voting despite Trump’s criticism of the practice. After Trump allies took over the Republican National Committee, the RNC decided to end its “Bank Your Vote” program on early voting and focus on recruiting voters instead. Meanwhile, the party’s new leadership urged party chairs and committee members to encourage “voters to utilize early voting and vote-by-mail,” CNN reported.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that fraudulent voting by mail led to his 2020 election loss and given mixed messages about his own views on early voting. “I will secure our elections, and our goal will be one-day voting with paper ballots and voter ID,” he said at an Iowa rally in October. “Until then, Republicans have to compete, and we have to win.”
RNC co-chair Lara Trump similarly called for a return to single-day voting. “We would love to get back to one-day voting,” she said during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on March 25. “We would love to have voter ID and paper ballots. We can get to that, but we have to elect Donald Trump president first.”
A sizable number of Texas voters already utilize early voting. In the 2020 presidential election, 46% of registered voters voted early, up from 43.5% in the 2016 election, The Texas Tribune reported.
“In this critical 2024 election, we need all Republicans to step up and defend Texas so we can save America,” Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi said in a statement. “Voting early and using DeployYourVote.com ensures Texas Republican turnout makes our margins too big to rig.”
The Texas GOP campaign is not the first of its kind. In Virginia, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin launched a similar program through his political action committee, Secure Your Vote Virginia. Pennsylvania Republicans have also begun talks to encourage Republicans in their state to vote early.
But Republicans are competing with Trump’s claims that early voting, particularly by mail, is rife with fraud, making the pitch more challenging.
“The future of our great state is on the line, and voting early means Republicans win decisively in November,” Cruz said in a statement. “My race is about keeping Texas, Texas, and never before has it been more important for Texas to stay red and hold the line against the left’s radical ideas.”
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Ryan Hernández is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.