Trump vows to mount major ballot-harvesting campaign 'in every state we can'

Analysts have said Democratic vote-gathering efforts explain major wins, midterm successes

Published: February 15, 2023 1:27pm

Updated: February 15, 2023 1:38pm

Former President Donald Trump this week indicated a shift in electoral tactics ahead of the 2024 election, promising to embrace "ballot harvesting" as a major campaign method for his next presidential run. 

Trump made the declaration in a fundraising email this week, according to the Wall Street Journal. “The radical Democrats have used ballot harvesting to cancel out YOUR vote and walk away with elections that they NEVER should have won," the former president said, adding that he himself is "doing something HUGE to fight back.”

"Our path forward is to MASTER the Democrats’ own game of harvesting ballots in every state we can," Trump continued, urging supporters to help "start laying the foundation for victory RIGHT NOW.”

Trump has earlier indicated a willingness to embrace mail-in voting and ballot collection systems even as he and Republicans more generally have sharply criticized such election methods. "For the time ... we have to live with the system that stinks," he told Breitbart late last year.

He nevertheless sharply criticized mail-in balloting due to its significant security concerns. “It’s a corrupt system," he said. "A mail-in ballot will always be corrupt."

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