Former President Donald Trump would rather have just one day of voting, but he is willing to use the Democrats' "playbook" with mail-in voting and ballot harvesting to win in 2024, adviser and author Dick Morris told Newsmax on Monday.
"The most significant thing in the speech is that he firmly committed to a policy of doing what he can to win the election within the law, but following the playbook that the Democrats developed: early voting, of mail-in voting, drop boxes, ballot harvesting, and such," Morris told "American Agenda." "In the past, he's refused to do that, and the Republicans have suffered mightily because of it."
Trump addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland on Saturday, telling the audience Republicans must do everything they can "under the law" to win in 2024.
"I will move heaven and Earth to fully secure our elections," Trump said, calling on all Republican governors to immediate push for paper ballots, same-day voting, and voter identification. "But, until that day comes, Republicans must compete by using every lawful means to win. That means swamping the left with mail-in votes, early votes, and election day votes — have to do it.
"We have to change our thinking, because some bad things happened."
Morris said early voting hurt GOP Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz in his race against Democrat John Fetterman, with Fetterman already banking 600,000 more votes than Oz by election day.
Fetterman went on to win the Senate seat, helping Democrats obtain a majority in that chamber.
"We can't let that kind of thing happen again, and Trump firmly committed to the idea of early voting, and to the idea of going home-to-home with ballot boxes and doing voting there, and mail-in ballots, all without fraud, but to beat the Democrats their own game."
During his speech Saturday, Trump also pointed out problems during the 2022 midterm elections in Arizona, where Republicans stood for hours unable to vote because of a technical issue, with some being sent home and told to come back later.
"If you look at [GOP gubernatorial candidate] Kari Lake in Arizona, where [Republicans] waited and waited," Trump said. "In Republican areas, a tremendous percentage of the machines were broken, and you couldn't vote — had lines that were a mile long."
He said the voters were told to "come back in seven hours" to cast their ballots, something many could not do because of other commitments.
"They have Little League, they have doctors, they might love Kari and the Republican Party and everything we stand for, but they can't do that," Trump added.
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