Virginia Republicans Are Trying To Beat Democrats At Their Own Electioneering Game. Will It Work?The Virginia GOP is seeking to embrace a Democrat-favored election strategy in order to turn the state completely red this fall.BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD
AUGUST 02, 2023
Nearly two years ago, Virginia Republicans stunned the D.C. pundit class after mounting an electoral upset in the increasingly blue commonwealth. By capitalizing on issues like Covid lockdown policies and parental rights, the state GOP not only took control of the House of Delegates; it also swept in races for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general.
Now, with the state rapidly approaching its upcoming General Assembly elections, the Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) is seeking to embrace a Democrat-favored election strategy in order to turn the state completely red this November. A few weeks ago, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the state GOP launched Secure Your Vote Virginia, an initiative designed to assist voters in casting their ballots early by mail or in person.
“Secure Your Vote Virginia is a cultural shift for us as a party,” RPV chair Rich Anderson told The Federalist. “We believe that the Democrats have accrued an advantage … because they banked the vote early and so we’re pushing that very hard as a safe and secure method.”
While Democrats have made unsupervised, mail-in balloting a key electoral strategy in recent years, Republicans have largely relied on in-person voting on Election Day. Instead of focusing solely on getting their voters to the polls on Election Day, Virginia Republicans are hoping its newest initiative will allow the party to maximize its overall turnout by employing the state’s early voting system.
On Secure Your Vote Virginia’s website, state residents are provided step-by-step instructions on how to request, return, and track their absentee ballots. It furthermore allows residents seeking to vote early in person to sign up to receive notifications from the initiative on “when and where” to go once early voting begins to cast their ballot.
Republicans “can’t go into our elections down thousands of votes,” Youngkin said in a video message accompanying the initiative’s launch. It’s worth mentioning the governor’s 2021 campaign embraced early voting during his successful gubernatorial bid.
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Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/02/virginia-republicans-are-trying-to-beat-democrats-at-their-own-electioneering-game-will-it-work/
