RNC Chairman Says GOP Is Focusing on Low Propensity Voters

Voters make their selections at voting booths inside an early voting site in Hendersonville, N.C., on Oct. 17, 2024. Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images

The head of the Republican National Committee (RNC) said the party is concentrating on low-propensity voters in the coming election.

“We are focused on low propensity voters. That is really, truly the push. And we are combining door knocks with phone calls with direct mail with digital communication, emails, texts,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a radio interview with Breitbart News, published on Friday.

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.

Data from North Carolina show that about 36.4 percent of early voters are Democrats, 33.4 percent are Republicans, and 30.2 percent are unaffiliated or belong to a minor party, according to the University of Florida’s Election Tracker.

In Arizona, 45.3 percent of returned ballots so far are Republican, 33.7 percent are Democrat, and 21 percent are minor or a third party, the tracker shows.

According to the data, 64 percent of Pennsylvanians who voted early are Democrats, 26.7 percent are Republicans, and 9.3 percent are unaffiliated or a third party.

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.

The Epoch Times contacted the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris for comment.

11 Million Voted So Far

More broadly, the University of Florida website shows that more than 11 million have cast early ballots so far in the Nov. 5 election, including more than 8.1 million mail ballots and 3.1 million who have voted early in person. About 55 million or so mail-in ballots have been requested to date.

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.