Public Disagrees With Trump/GOP About Mail-In Voting

The chart above is from the NBC News / Wall Street Journal Poll -- done between April 13th and 15th of a national sample of 900 registered voters, with a 3.27 point margin of error.

Donald Trump is opposed to voting by mail. He said it promotes fraud. And the congressional Republicans are backing him on that. They have blocked attempts by Democrats to pass a nationwide mail-in voting bill (at least for this election during the Coronavirus pandemic).

There is no evidence of widespread fraud with mail-in voting. The Republicans are just trying, once again, to suppress voting. They know that when the voters turn out in large numbers, it tends to favor the Democrats. This is just one more effort to keep as many people from voting as possible.

But it puts them at odds with most Americans. About 58% would support a law allowing all Americans to vote by mail, and another 9% would support allowing it for this election only. That's two-thirds (67%) of voters who would support allowing mail-in voting in this November's election. People want to vote in this important election, and they would prefer to do it safely.

The Republican opposition to mail-in voting may actually hurt their own candidates -- at least in red states. Democrats have been chomping at the bit to vote Trump out of office for over three years now. They will vote -- even if they have to crawl over broken glass on their hands and knees to do it. They will put on their masks and gloves and show up at the polls.

But will red-state Republicans and Independents? They could well think that because they live in a red state, their vote is not really needed -- and stay at home rather than possibly expose themselves to a deadly virus.

Republicans could be hurting themselves as much as they hope to hurt their opponents by refusing to allow mail-in voting.