Will early voting backfire on Democrats?

Specifically, Trump’s big mistakes, according to this analysis and others like it, were his Oct. 27 “hate” rally at Madison Square Garden, his statement on Oct. 30 that he will protect women “whether the women like it or not,” and his Oct. 31 “firing squad” statement about former Rep. Liz Cheney.

Put aside the substance of all this, of course, Trump did not suggest that Cheney be marched in front of a firing squad. The fact is that millions of voters saw press reports saying that he did. That’s what media bias is about — creating impressions that take hold among casual news consumers who don’t have the time or inclination to look into the matter for themselves. In today’s media environment, that kind of reporting is almost entirely anti-Trump.

Accompanying this, and perhaps caused by it, was a slight turn toward Harris in some of the final polls. Put it all together, and Democrats are very happy.

But did Trump’s allegedly damaging “gaffes” really matter much? Did voters really pay attention to them? Did they even hear them? That is where early voting comes in. 

For the last several years, Democrats have been the most enthusiastic advocates of early voting, both by mail and in person. It turned out to be a huge advantage for them during the COVID election of 2020, when more than 110 million people voted early in person or by mail. This year, fortunately with no COVID, about 82 million voted early — smaller, but still a huge number.

Opponents of early voting believe Election Day should be a single day, with limited exceptions for absentee, special needs, and military voting. That is, voters should experience the entire campaign, start to finish, and then cast their votes. Critics note that early voters miss possibly important events in the final days of a campaign because they voted weeks beforehand.

Now apply that to the 2024 campaign, to Harris’s “near-flawless” finish and Trump’s “grievance-fueled attacks.” What has early voting meant for that?

By Oct. 27, the day of the Madison Square Garden rally, 44 million people had already voted. That meant nothing said or done at the rally would have any effect on their votes. By Oct. 30, the day Trump pledged to protect women, more than 55 million people had already voted. And by the next day, Oct. 31, the day Trump discussed Cheney, more than 60 million had already voted. 

Those voters did not see either candidate’s finish. They made their decisions ahead of time. Did that matter? Well, certainly millions of people had long ago made up their minds to vote for Trump or to vote against Trump, either for President Joe Biden or now for Harris. Seeing the final days of the campaign would not have affected their choice.

But Harris supporters have been putting a lot of their hopes on late-deciding, persuadable voters. Here is an ironic possibility for this election: Republicans and independents made great use of early voting during the weeks when Trump was flying high. It is possible that Trump’s good period convinced some leaners to vote for him. Had they witnessed the last 10 days of the campaign, those leaners might have gone the other way. By that time, of course, their votes were already in the Trump column.

That’s what early voting does. It shortcuts the normal course of a campaign so that voters cast their votes without knowing how the campaigns ended or what national or world events took place in the final days. In what sense can that possibly be a good thing?