Trump notes GOP governor when asked why he backs mail-in voting in Florida

President Trump on Tuesday elaborated on his sudden support for mail-in voting in the state of Florida by noting the state is run by a Republican governor.

The president earlier in the day offered a qualifier to his weeks of sustained attacks on mail-in voting by encouraging residents in Florida to take advantage of absentee and mail ballots. The state is both Trump’s official place of residence and a must-win state in his reelection bid.

Asked to explain why he now supports voting via mail in Florida but not elsewhere, Trump pointed to the state’s political leadership.

“Florida’s got a great Republican governor. And it had a great Republican governor,” Trump said, citing Ron DeSantis (R) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). “Two great governors. And over a long period of time they’ve been able to get the absentee ballots done extremely professionally.”

“They’re so well run. Florida’s a very well run state,” he added. “Low taxes, low everything. They’ve done a great job. Really a great job. And the two governors, between the both of them, they’ve really got a great system of absentee ballots and even in the case of mail-in ballots.”

He suggested Florida’s postal service workers were more up to the task of sending and receiving mail ballots than in other states like Nevada, where Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) recently approved legislation to automatically send mail-in ballots to registered voters in the state. Trump and the GOP have pledged to fight the move in court.

“I haven’t spoken to the Post Office about it but I don’t know how they could possibly be prepared,” Trump said of the shift in Nevada.

For a second consecutive day, Trump also highlighted an ongoing primary race in New York that has yet to be decided as officials have been slow to count a crush of mail ballots. The president has fixated on the idea that the presidential election may not be determined the night of Nov. 3, something experts has said is expected as more voters cast mail ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The president earlier Tuesday tweeted that Florida’s election system was “Safe and Secure, Tried and True.”

Trump just last week suggested delaying the November election — something the president does not have the power to do — as he leveled new attacks on mail-in voting.

He claimed at the time that 2020 would be the “most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history” if universal mail-in voting were implemented. Experts have repeatedly noted that there is no evidence of meaningful fraud in mail-in voting and mail ballots have security measures in place to prevent fraud.

Republicans also have grown worried that Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting could actually suppress the GOP vote in the upcoming election.