Whether a winner is declared on Election Day or not, top Trump surrogates have been asked to remain available for potential post-election rallies.
Those rallies may even take place while votes are still being counted, according to Trump campaign advisers. The campaign is considering a “morale boost” tour for supporters in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania and North Carolina, similar to the “thank you” tour President Trump went on after his 2016 upset, according to Politico.
In that tour, Trump visited Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Alabama — allowing Trump to revel in his victory with the supporters who paved his way to the White House. He was joined by the likes of Diamond and Silk, Hope Hicks, and Kellyanne Conway.
“Don’t miscount the fact that Trump will continue to do rallies while they’re still counting votes,” one adviser to the Trump campaign told the outlet.
A campaign aide said that despite discussions of a potential tour, no decisions have been made regarding where he would go or who would accompany him. “If we still don’t have results in Michigan and North Carolina or Pennsylvania and Nevada on Nov. 4, he might hit those states individually,” the aide said.
The coronavirus pandemic has affected an unprecedented level of mail-in voting and expanded early voting. In some states, such as Texas, more people have voted before Election Day than the total number of voters in 2016. But all those ballots have to be counted, and in 34 states, mail-in ballots are not allowed to be counted until Election Day — and 17 of those states are not allowed to start counting until after the polls have closed, according to Ballotpedia.
Many states this year have also expanded how long after Election Day they will accept ballots to be counted. This week, the Supreme Court ruled that North Carolina can accept ballots up to nine days after Election Day as long as they’re postmarked by Tuesday. The high court also ruled that Pennsylvania can accept ballots after Election Day.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Trump campaign for further comment.
