Democrats use mail voting more than Republicans. That’s why Trump is attacking it

Opponents of President Donald Trump’s dangerous executive order restricting mail voting say there’s a simple motivation behind the scheme: 

Democrats vote by mail more than Republicans.

In a new complaint last week, Democratic state attorneys general pointedly highlighted Trump’s own words on the issue, sent to his millions of followers on social media.

“One need not look further than the White House to explain USPS’s unprecedented and unlawful conduct. President Trump has long opposed mail voting, expressing that it would ‘LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY.’ Since reassuming office, the President has aimed to—in his words— ‘get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS,’” the Democratic officials wrote.

Similarly, in a recent filing seeking a preliminary injunction, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Democratic National Committee, Democratic Governors Association, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries* argued Trump’s order “will disadvantage them relative to their competitors due to Democratic voters’ disproportionate reliance on mail voting.”

“Plaintiffs and their candidate members are injured by the instability and uncertainty of the field on which they are competing,” they wrote.

They added that Democrats will suffer harm by being forced to recalculate their plans for the elections, including voter education and turnout programs, “making it more difficult to accomplish their fundamental purpose of turning out Democratic voters and electing Democrats.”

Those claims are well-founded. Mail voting has long been especially popular among older voters, who have leaned Republican. But since the pandemic, the voting method has been adopted much more widely — and Democrats have lately made gains among older voters, experts told Democracy Docket. Both shifts have led to the current reality, in which more Democrats vote by mail than Republicans.

Thirty-seven percent of Democrats reported voting by mail in 2024, compared to 24% of Republicans, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Election Data and Science Lab. 

That gap was even wider in 2020 – an election in which Trump to this day refuses to accept his loss to Joe Biden – when 60% of Democrats reported voting by mail compared to 32% of Republicans.

An analysis by States United, looking at primary voting in ten states with closed primaries, paints a similar picture. It found that 26% of Democrats, compared to 18% of Republicans, voted by mail in 2024.

Now, ahead of November’s pivotal elections, with control of Congress and the fate of his agenda on the line, Trump is seeking to put in place new restrictions on mail voting that officials warn would cause chaos and disenfranchisement. 

Eight states automatically send mail ballots to all active registered voters before Election Day: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington. In 29 states, any voter can request and submit a mail ballot without providing a reason, and 13 others grant requests for mail ballots based on a voter’s reason for not being able to vote in person. 

Those most likely to be affected by mail voting disruptions are older voters, people with disabilities and rural voters.

“It looks like the patterns that we saw coming out of the pandemic are holding, and that is Democrats are more likely to vote by mail than Republicans,” Charles Stewart, founding director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, told Democracy Docket.

“What I don’t know is what influence the Postal Service’s travails are having on people who would normally vote by mail, both Democrats and Republicans,” Stewart said.

For now, Trump’s anti-mail voting order is on hold by a federal judge as it’s being challenged by voting rights groups and Democratic officials, the latter of whom have argued that Trump is essentially trying to rig the outcome.

The Trump administration has argued the changes to mail voting are “modest” in nature and aimed at improving security – despite the fact that there is no evidence of widespread fraud from mail-in voting.

And, at the end of the day, Trump has continued to vote by mail himself despite his incessant attacks on it. He did so just last month in Florida’s Republican primary.

*The Elias Law Group (ELG) represents the plaintiffs in this case. ELG Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.