Pennsylvania Mail-in-Ballot Program Post-Primary Review

TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Dee Duncan, President, RSLC PAC

Jessica Anderson, President, SAF

Brendon DelToro, Chief Strategist, Keystone Renewal PAC

DATE: April 29, 2024

RE: Pennsylvania Mail-in-Ballot Program Post-Primary Review

Pennsylvania Mail-in Ballot Primary Election Overview

In January, the Republican State Leadership Committee PAC (RSLC PAC), Keystone Renewal PAC, and The Sentinel Action Fund (SAF) announced the largest Republican statewide mail-in-ballot initiative in Pennsylvania’s history. This groundbreaking eight-figure investment positions Republicans to counterbalance the Democrats' dominance in mail-in voting, not only in the upcoming elections this fall, but in future election cycles thanks to the significant in-state infrastructure it will help us build.

Unlike in previous years, our proactive approach to mail-in voting commenced well in advance of the primary elections. We invested over $1.5 million during the 2024 Republican primary to actively engage with voters statewide and encourage them to make their plan to vote. We sent four rounds of vote-by-mail application mail pieces to over 1.5 million Republican voters and we launched digital advertisements across various platforms delivering over 20 million impressions. We also sent over 475,000 peer-to-peer text messages. In March, we launched a website, www.skipthelinepa.vote, which received over 40,000 visits ahead of the primary, and will continue to serve as a tool to educate voters about the convenience, safety, and security of voting by mail in Pennsylvania.

Our primary election goal was twofold: first, encourage Republican voters to embrace the convenience of mail-in ballots by joining the permanent mail-in ballot list and requesting their ballots for the primary election. Second, we aimed to dispel concerns among Republican voters about mail-in voting by emphasizing its safety, security, and ease of use in Pennsylvania's electoral process.

Primary Program Results

Our program's targeted approach yielded significant results during the primary election phase, with 75% of all new permanent list signups originating from our targeted universe, despite comprising less than one-third of the total GOP electorate. Our program produced over 24,000 new permanent list signups, while Democrats produced only 13,000 new permanent vote-by-mail list signups, demonstrating a nearly 2-to-1 ratio of new Republican permanent list signups over Democrats. Notably, 52% of our targeted voters who requested a VBM (Vote-By-Mail) ballot for the primary election have also joined the permanent list, underscoring the effectiveness of our strategy and signaling that Republicans are warming up to mail-in voting in the Commonwealth.

During the primary election last week, Republicans produced more than 236,000 vote-by-mail ballot requests. This is roughly an 18% increase from the 2022 Primary Election and only 50,000 fewer requests than the 2022 General Election. Republicans also had more than 160,000 VBM returns in the 2024 primary election, roughly a 7% increase from the 2022 Primary Election. Democrats, on the other hand, produced only 650,000 requests and 467,000 returns. In 2022 during the primary election, Democrats had over 680,000 requests and 550,000 returns. Our

program never sought to overtake Democrats in vote-by-mail voting outright, but instead, our goal has always been to continue to chip away at their advantage and narrow the gap. The vote-by-mail results from the primary election show that Republicans in Pennsylvania are not only beginning to embrace vote-by-mail voting, but they are also more excited to support President Trump, Dave McCormick, and Republicans up-and-down the ballot than the Democrat slate of candidates as we head into a pivotal general election. The investment we made in the primary has benefitted the entire ticket and puts us on offense in Pennsylvania as we begin the General Election.

General Election Engagement

During the 2022 General Election, Democrats had secured over 825,000 votes ahead of election day. In contrast, Republicans had amassed only a little over 250,000 votes by the time election night came around. The 2022 election cycle saw the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania determined by a margin of approximately 264,000 votes, while state legislative races across the Commonwealth were decided by just a few hundred votes each. Looking at the 2020 Presidential Election, President Trump lost to Joe Biden by an even smaller margin of less than 100,000 votes. Each vote garnered through our Republican mail-in voting program will serve to diminish the lead that the Democrats have built through their mail-in voting efforts.

As we shift our focus to the general election, our mail-in voting program's primary objective is to strategically allocate resources post-primary to help get Republican candidates up-and-down the ballot across the finish line. We will continue to engage persuadable and low-propensity Republican voters, providing them with ample opportunities to request their ballot by utilizing techniques such as mail pieces, digital advertising, peer-to-peer texting, and a robust door-to-door field program. By investing earlier and more aggressively than ever before, we aim to ensure that Republicans carry their momentum from the primary election into the general election.

Conclusion

Our goal for the general election hasn’t changed; since announcing this historic effort back in January, we must continue to target low-propensity voters to get them off the sidelines and vote, and we need to increase the Republican share of the overall vote-by-mail vote total. The primary election showed us that we have the right formula for success, and that Republicans are becoming more receptive to the idea of mail-in voting in general. Our work also gave us a tremendous head start on the next few months, and It is now our mission to deliver that continued success during the most important election of our lifetime this November.