Donald Trump’s campaign has expressed cautious optimism about the Republican nominee’s chances of becoming the 47th president, with early voting numbers indicating the former chief executive is on course to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris.
While officials have insisted that “anything can happen” and that it is “too early to declare victory,” the initial returns from key states look better for the 78-year-old than both the 2016 and 2020 elections.
“Overall, both nationally and in battleground states, we are seeing strong returns for Republicans so far,” a Trump campaign adviser said on a surrogate call Wednesday.
“From where we’re sitting right now, things look pretty good. Encouraging signs across the board. The voter registration gains in all the partisan registration states have been tremendously in our favor.”
As of Monday, the number of Republican-registered early voters in the swing states of Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania were up double-digits from 2020, the Trump team said.
Meanwhile, the number of returned mail-in ballots are down “quite substantially” from 2020 in Pennsylvania, as well as 79% in Georgia and 25% in Michigan — a possible sign that Democrats, the main practitioners of mail-in voting, are not turning out for Harris the way they did for Joe Biden four years ago.
Republicans are also seeing “sustained overperformance” in Virginia and Ohio, the Trump adviser said.
“It’s certainly too early to begin declaring victory,” they cautioned, “but it is certainty worth pointing out that our share of the early vote is turning in the right direction.”
The campaign’s mood has been helped by national polls from the Wall Street Journal and CNBC, both of which show Trump ahead of Harris in the national popular vote — which has not been won by a Republican in 20 years.
Despite the good vibes, Trump has urged his supporters to turn out early and in record numbers so that the election is “too big to rig.”
“President Trump continues to dominate in poll after poll, Republicans have made massive voter registration gains, and we are far outperforming in our share of the early vote relative to two or four years ago across all battleground states,” Trump 2024 national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
“Voters know that Kamala Harris has destroyed our country, but President Trump will fix it — and that is why he is well-positioned for victory on November 5.”
On the other side, Democrats have expressed visible nervousness about the state of the race, with both former President Barack Obama and Harris campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon saying they believe the election will be “tight.”
“We have yet to see the same kinds of energy and turnout in all corners of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running,” Obama said earlier this month at a “Black Voters for Harris” event in Pittsburgh, alluding to poll numbers suggesting Trump may put up the best performance of any Republican nominee among that demographic in 64 years.
Another top Harris surrogate, former President Bill Clinton, said Wednesday in Arizona that Harris is “extremely vulnerable, more vulnerable than she deserves to be.”
Privately, a campaign official suggested to NBC News this week that there are fears “that maybe Michigan or Wisconsin will fall” out of reach for Harris, in a repeat of Trump’s sweep of the so-called “Blue Wall” eight years ago.
Some Democrats also told The Post they were unhappy with Harris opting to spend Friday in deep-red Texas to discuss abortion rather than going to a true battleground.
“They are not thinking ‘Blue Wall’ at all. They are just not thinking,” one party insider said.
“Her press operation is that of a first-time congressional candidate running as a sacrificial lamb.”