Poor Early Voting Turnout Apparently a Big Plus for Republicans

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


I love this headline from Katrina Trinko over at NRO:

RNC: In Key Swing States, More Republicans than Democrats Haven’t Already Voted

Got that? No? Let’s allow the RNC to explain:

[Democrats] are cannibalizing their Election Day voters. The great turnout operation they claim to have isn’t turning out enough new or sporadic voters; they’re largely getting their reliable voters to vote early instead of on Election Day.

The Republican strategy has been the reverse of the Democrats’. We have turned out our voters who aren’t as likely to come to the polls on Election Day, securing their votes during early voting. Now, all that remains to do is give our reliable voters the final reminder needed to get them to the polls Tuesday. And we have many more reliable voters left than the Democrats.

Let’s translate: Democrats are kicking our butts in early voting, so, um, that means they’re losing. We, on the other hand, are cleverly saving up all our votes for Election Day.

Uh huh.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate