RNC Rolls Out Campaign to Push Early Voting

Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, in Dana Point, Calif., on Jan. 27, 2023. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has launched a new campaign urging Republican voters to cast their ballots early ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

The push for Republicans to abandon Election Day voting was announced on June 7 by RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel in a video shared to her Twitter account.

“The RNC is laser-focused on beating Joe Biden and far-left Democrats next November, and in addition to protecting the vote, we need you to bank your vote,” McDaniel said. “To win close elections, we need to close the gap on pre-Election Day voting. That’s why we’re launching the Bank Your Vote initiative.”

According to McDaniel, the campaign will educate Republicans on where, when, and how to cast their ballots prior to Election Day, either through mail-in ballots or early voting at the polls.

“If we don’t vote early, we’re giving the Democrats a head start,” she added. “But when Republicans vote early, we win. And in 2024, we are going to hold the House, win back the Senate, and take the White House.”

To achieve those goals, the GOP will spread the word by going door-to-door in cities across the United States and harvesting ballots—or collecting them and dropping them off on behalf of voters—where legally permitted.

The initiative will be spearheaded by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.).

“Beating Joe Biden & the Democrats is the only way to take back our country,” Donalds posted on Twitter. “I’m proud to co-chair this winning game plan to #BankYourVote & encourage voters to securely bank as many pre-Election Day votes as possible.”

Deep Divisions

The GOP’s new focus on early voting follows a disappointing midterm election cycle in which the party expected to see a “red wave” but instead saw more of a red puddle.

Not only did Republicans fail to flip the Senate, but their new House majority was much smaller than anticipated, leaving little room for intraparty division.

And divided is precisely what the party has been.

In January, the power struggle between eventual House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the staunchly conservative Freedom Caucus put the differences between Republican factions on full display.

Meanwhile, McDaniel found herself locked in a contentious battle to keep her role as RNC chair, as some Republicans questioned her ability to lead the party to victory.

While she managed to fend off challenges from attorney Harmeet Dhillon and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, McDaniel emerged from the dust-up promising unity and changes to the party’s strategy going forward.

But not all Republicans were assured.

“The party is not united,” Dhillon told reporters after the election. “Nobody’s going to unite around the party the way it is, which is seemingly ignoring the grassroots.”

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk also had doubts.

“The RNC has contempt for their voters,” Kirk said. “They basically just gave them a middle finger.”

The divisions have also been clear among the GOP’s 2024 presidential primary field, which continues to grow despite former President Donald Trump’s commanding lead.

Throwing his hat in the ring on June 6, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wasted no time in throwing punches, calling Trump a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving, mirror hog.”

The 45^th president, he asserted, is someone “obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault, who always finds someone else and something else to blame for whatever goes wrong—but finds every reason to take credit for anything that goes right.”

And Trump didn’t hesitate to hit back. He criticized Christie’s speech as “boring” and made a subtle dig at the former governor’s weight.

“How many times did Chris Christie use the word small?” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Does he have a psychological problem with size? Actually, his speech was small, and not very good.”

Chasing Ballots

The Bank Your Vote campaign—undoubtedly one of McDaniel’s promised changes—also comes on the heels of Arizona Republican Kari Lake’s announcement that she will be launching the “largest, most extensive ballot-chasing operation” in Arizona’s history.

Although the practice of ballot harvesting is not legal in Arizona, Lake advised that her volunteers would work within the confines of the law to ensure as many Republican votes as possible are cast.

“We are going to contact every voter, make sure that if they have a ballot sitting on their counter, we help them get that ballot to where it needs to go,” she said at a May 23 press conference. “And we’re going to register … everybody we can to vote, and we’re going to turn our state around. We’re going to take it back because this government belongs to ‘we the people.’”

Noting that such practices are frequently used by Democrats, Lake added, “If we’ve got to work in their rigged system, we’ll work in their rigged system.”

Since November, the former news anchor has been locked in an ongoing legal challenge of the results of Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial election, which she holds she rightfully won.

Citing misprinted ballots and other Election Day administrative problems in Maricopa County, Lake has maintained that county officials sabotaged day-of voting to disenfranchise Republican voters.

Thus far, Arizona’s court system has rejected that claim, though Lake has filed a notice of appeal.

“We are going to continue pushing through the Arizona courts and into the United States Supreme Court,” she told Real America’s Voice on June 2. “And we’re not going to stop until we have honest elections.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.