RNC Chairman Says GOP Is Focusing on Low Propensity Voters
The head of the Republican National Committee (RNC) said the party is concentrating on low-propensity voters in the coming election.
He said the number of such voters participating in the 2024 election is significantly higher than in previous years.
"I will say that the low propensity voter turnout, in terms of their percentage of the overall vote, is dramatically higher than what we've typically seen," Whatley said, without providing specifics.
He described a low-propensity voter as someone who has not voted in two years or more. Those voters, he said, are "very likely" to vote for Trump if they do vote. Whatley did not provide more information about why he believes they are more likely to support the former president.
"What we're seeing in our first initial assessments out of Georgia, North Carolina, out of Arizona, out of Pennsylvania, is that we're having a really good response rate from the low propensity voters."
Those four states—along with Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin—are considered battleground states ahead of the 2024 election. In 2020, the presidential election was determined by slim margins in all seven swing states.
Whatley was referring to early in-person and absentee voting in those battleground states. Georgia does not provide party affiliation data on early in-person or absentee voters.
Arizona and Pennsylvania have not reported early in-person voting, and the tracker shows the only reported early ballots returned so far are absentee in either state. Both absentee and in-person early voting are ongoing in North Carolina and Georgia.
In states that report party affiliation, around 49.2 percent are Democrats, 31.2 percent are Republicans, and 19.6 percent are unaffiliated or minor party voters.
It shows that when separated by early in-person and mail-in voting, significantly more Democrats than Republicans have requested and returned mail-in ballots.
About 50.6 percent of mail-in ballots returned are from Democrats and 30.6 percent from Republicans, with 18.8 percent belonging to no party or a minor party.
For in-person early voting, it shows that around 38.4 percent are Democrats, 35.2 percent are Republicans, and 26.4 percent are a minor or third party.
