Trump embraces mail-in-voting. Here’s how that fits into California Republicans’ playbook

In a stark pivot, former President Donald Trump is embracing vote-by-mail and third-party ballot handoffs known as “ballot harvesting.”

“It turned out to be not such a bad idea,” Trump said in a video message to California Republican delegates Sunday, on the final morning of their spring convention. “We may not like the current system but we need to master the rules and beat the Democrats at their own game. Then we can make our own rules.”

It’s a reversal for the candidate who previously — and falsely claimed — that mail-in-voting contributed to voter fraud as well as a signal that Republicans see these strategies as essential to Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election.

Trump and his allies previously propagated false claims that mail-in-ballots are rife with fraud and less secure than traditional polls. During a 2020 presidential debate, the former president said without evidence that ballots were “being sold and dumped in rivers.”

“We have to play the game differently,” Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump said during an appearance at the California GOP convention. “We have to embrace things like legal ballot harvesting all across this country.”

If re-elected, however, Trump would move to implement “one day of voting, paper ballots and voter ID all across this country,” Lara Trump said.

The practice known as ballot harvesting is when a voter gives custody of their ballot to a designated third party to return. Mail-in-voting has been part of elections in California for roughly a decade and has become more prevalent since the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, voters in most counties receive a ballot about a month before Election Day.

Mail-in voting has also proven a secure method to vote. Out of more than 15 million ballots cast by mail in California during the last presidential election, less than 0.7% were rejected for reasons like a missing or mismatched signature or not arriving on-time, according to the California Secretary of State’s office. In most cases, counties are required to notify voters who had their ballots rejected and provide a window to “cure” the ballot.

California Republicans didn’t do ballot harvesting in 2018 “and got our butts handed to us,” said state Republican party chair Jessica Millan Patterson. “Then I got in trouble in 2020 for ballot boxes because we put them in churches and conservative businesses.”

After legal threats from state officials, the party agreed to ensure staff or volunteers were present to monitor the boxes.

Now, Patterson said the party has begun emphasizing community relationship and trust building.

“As a Republican, I find my ballot sacred,” she said. “We needed to make sure that people were not just showing up six weeks before an election and asking for a ballot.”

A peek in Republicans’ 2024 playbook

Top donors and delegates for the California GOP gathered in a hotel near San Francisco International Airport over the weekend for trainings and other party business. Party leaders including South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Lara Trump addressed delegates, who also voted to endorse a handful of ballot measures and re-elect representation on the Republican National Committee.

A top priority for California Republicans in 2024 is defending a half-dozen swing House seats in the Central Valley and Southern California. The party is also eyeing several opportunities for House pickups, including in the Orange County seat held by Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, who ran for Senate but failed to advance to the general election.

“We are responsible for the House majority,” Patterson told reporters at the convention. “We know what our job is and we are laser focused.”

Republican Senate candidate Steve Garvey, who will face Rep. Adam Schiff for California’s open Senate seat, skipped the gathering. Several Republicans in attendance said while they would have liked to meet Garvey, a former baseball star, they understood his decision to focus on the campaign.

“Generally, I give a candidate a lot of latitude about being in the field over these (convention) days,” said Jeff Gorman, chairman of the Monterey County Republican Party. “On the other hand, I would have loved to have met him.”

Party leaders are eyeing targeted outreach to the state’s large bloc of Latino voters. They also plan to hammer Democrats over “quality of life” issues including the cost of living, homelessness and crime.

“The Democrats would love to talk about all kinds of other issues,” like abortion and its impact on in vitro fertilization in Alabama, said Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher. “I think we’re very focused on the issues that matter to voters.”

“Crime is the number one issue across the board,” Patterson said. Republicans are supporting a ballot measure to roll back portions of Proposition 47, a 2014 initiative that reduced penalties for minor theft and drug possession crimes.

Patterson said pointing out the “failures of Democrats in Sacramento” and the Biden administration could help encourage No Party Preference voters and “soft Democrats” to vote for a Republican candidate.

“Sometimes candidates don’t set peoples’ hair on fire but quality of life issues do,” she said.