Nate Silver Warns Trump is ‘Discouraging Turnout’ Among His OWN Voters By Sowing Doubt in Mail-In Voting

FiveThirtyEight founder and ABC News correspondent Nate Silver warned Sunday that President Donald Trump may be “discouraging turnout” among his own voters by scaring them about the accuracy and validity of mail-in voting.

“Republican voters do listen to President Trump when he expresses concern — usually without any evidence we should note — about the integrity of mail ballots,” declared Silver on ABC News. “In our brand new ABC News-Washington Post survey, 78 percent of Trump voters say they see mail-in voting as vulnerable to significant levels of fraud. That compares to only 28 percent of Biden voters, and 49 percent of voters overall.”

“The irony is that historically this has been a pretty nonpartisan issue. Plenty of Democrats, and plenty of Republicans — including President Trump himself– have voted by mail or absentee ballot,” noted Silver. “The top states for mail voting in 2016 included blue states like Washington and Oregon, where voting takes place entirely by mail, but also red ones like Utah and Montana.”

“But Republican voters now say they’re less inclined to vote by mail,” he went on. “Just 17 percent of Trump supporters say they prefer to vote by mail in the new ABC poll, compared to 54 percent of Biden voters.”

Silver explained that it “may not be great for Trump because campaign operatives in both parties want people to vote as early as possible,” since “lots of things can come up on election day, ranging from losing your car keys to, well, maybe your state has a big spike in coronavirus cases.”

“So I do buy that mail ballots are a concern for Trump, but not because of abuse or fraud. By consistently talking them down, he may be discouraging turnout among his own voters,” Silver warned.

President Trump has repeatedly claimed that 2020 election mail-in votes could be rigged and fraudulent.

“There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed,” he tweeted in May. “This will be a Rigged Election. No way!”

Last month, the president also claimed, “This will be the Election disaster of our time. Mail-In Ballots will lead to a RIGGED ELECTION!” while on Sunday, Trump told Fox News, “I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election… I really do.”

Watch above via ABC News.