Trump went on Fox News to deliver the message to his supporters that he doesn’t need their votes and they shouldn’t show up to vote.
Trump said:
We have lawyers, every poll booth, we have, that’s what I, in fact, my instruction, we don’t need the votes, I have so many votes, I, I’m in Florida now, and I drove to another location yesterday, and every house has a Trump-Vance sign on it, every single house, there’s not a house that we passed that doesn’t, we are, we have the votes, I, what we have to do. But everybody, everybody has, it’s amazing the spirit. And I’ll say this, we had two elections. The first election we did great. The second election we did much better than the first election. But this election has more spirit. That I’ve ever seen ever before, and that’s because they’ve seen how bad these people are at government.
Video:
Trump on Fox & Friends claims that he’s instructed his supporters not to vote: “My instruction — we don’t need the votes. I have so many votes.” pic.twitter.com/vdf3wQLnKH
â Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 25, 2024
When Trump gets panicked, one of his big flexes over the years has been to tell people not to vote. Donald Trump wants to believe that the election has not shifted and that he has it already done. It is this false confidence that has gotten Republicans into trouble in every election cycle since 2017.
There are more anti-Trump voters than Trump voters in the country, but Donald Trump still believes that VP Harris will not drive turnout up, and he can count on his base to be enough to win him the election.
Telling his voters not to vote is a counterproductive and dumb strategy. Trump did it in 2020, and he lost. He is doing it again in 2024 and could face the same result.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association