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It is the voters who dont turn out like clockwork, many of whom have weak partisan identities, who can make a crucial difference in close-fought races. Those are the voters some Republicans fear will be lost to the party if mail voting is not embraced.

The president has his viewpoint and we have ours; were trying to win elections, said Dave Millage, the Republican chair of Scott County in Iowa. He anticipated that mail voting would also be popular in November, when Iowa Republicans will be defending a vulnerable senator, Joni Ernst, as well as trying to flip a congressional seat in the Second District, which includes Scott County.

We will call everybody to request an absentee ballot and make sure they get them in, Mr. Millage said. You bank that vote, you dont have to spend money to get them out to vote. You can cross them off the list.

But so far, Mr. Trumps disparagement of mail voting is winning out in Scott County, which encompasses Davenport. As of Monday, 10,344 Democrats had voted by mail, or 66 percent of the total, compared with 5,342 Republicans. Only 54 percent of county voters who are registered with a party are Democrats. Moreover, Republicans have a contested primary for the open House seat while Democrats do not.

Before Mr. Trump made mail voting toxic to many of his grass-roots supporters, it was widely used in many states, including some in which more Republicans than Democrats tended to vote absentee.

It was Republican majorities in the Pennsylvania Legislature that passed a bill last year expanding no-excuse mail voting to any registered voter. It was signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat.

Mr. Trump, who has voted by mail in Florida, has weaponized the issue recently as polls showed him falling behind in battleground states. He falsely claimed a Democratic secretary of state in Michigan had illegally sent absentee ballot requests for the November election, and he threatened to hold back federal funds to Nevada if its Republican secretary of state went ahead with plans to send mail ballots directly to registered voters before its June 9 primary.

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Republicans Fear Trumps Criticism of Mail-In Ballots Will Hurt Them - The New York Times

WASHINGTON As Republicans scramble to reboot the GOP convention, one option gaining traction is a multistate affair with major speeches and rallies in a variety of cities, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

Part of the appeal of the roadshow approach is that it could allow President Donald Trump to claim having commanded the highest-attended convention audience in history, they said, and to accept his renomination with all the fanfare he envisioned.

"I think it's going to be a glorified rally," a person familiar with the conversations said of the president's keynote address.

After canceling plans this week to hold the GOP convention in Charlotte, North Carolina plans years in the making Trump and the Republican National Committee are surveying at least seven states and nine cities as possible alternatives.

GOP officials are already on the ground in places like Orlando and Jacksonville, Florida; Nashville, Tennessee; Dallas; Phoenix; and New Orleans. They may also schedule scouting visits to Atlanta; Savannah, Georgia; and Las Vegas in the weeks to come.

They said no final decisions have been made on a location or locations.

The search is taking place as public polling shows Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden and as his own campaign's spending shows concern over states that he won handily in 2016.

The president met with his top political aides and advisers Thursday in the Oval Office, where they discussed "very concerning" internal polling in reliably Republican states, such as Texas, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

He then addressed campaign and RNC staff in a larger gathering, where the president was "in an upbeat mood" and "in very high spirits," a staffer in the room said. He indicated that he is "eager" to get back on the campaign trail, but no decisions were made in the meeting about when the campaign may return to future rallies.

Some official convention business, such as finalizing the GOP platform, is still expected to be conducted in Charlotte, given contractual obligations and significant financial investments that Republicans have already made there.

The more public-facing part, however, will be uprooted just 80 days ahead of time in a highly unusual move.

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The Republican National Committee announced in July 2018 that the convention would take place in Charlotte.

The scope of a reimagined convention to nominate Trump for a second term hinges largely on cost and how quickly Republicans can raise enough money to fund events both in Charlotte and elsewhere.

The idea of a roving multistate convention also depends in part on the ability to quickly work out logistics, such as how to accommodate delegates who have planned for months and years on traveling to Charlotte.

But a grandiose statement of having hosted the most-attended convention in history is one that Trump, a former reality television star who fixates on crowd size, is very interested in making, people familiar with the discussions said.

One way that might work would be for rallies to feed into a venue in Charlotte by video on the first three nights of the convention, ending with delegates attending the president's keynote speech on the final night in person in a different city.

If the RNC does decide to do a multi-city tour, the events would all have a "rally-type look and feel," according to an official.

There's acknowledgement that this has never been done before and that there's no precedent for a split convention in this manner, because there's "only one decision-maker that actually matters," and that is the president, this person said.

The coronavirus pandemic has already significantly altered the presidential race, with Democrats acknowledging the possibility that part of their gathering will be held virtually. Republicans have rejected any such plan for their event.

And Trump said he was unwilling even to accept modifications that GOP organizers had been discussing for weeks, such as practicing social distancing on the convention floor and limiting in-person attendance.

Mass protests in recent weeks over the killing of George Floyd also complicated potential health considerations for later in the summer. The uncertainty of a large spike in cases cemented North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper's inability to guarantee that thousands could gather in his state in late August.

The RNC repeatedly asked Cooper to commit to allowing as many as 19,000 people in the Spectrum Center, an assurance that he said couldn't be provided because of health and safety concerns.

Instead, GOP officials decided to move ahead with surveying other places in states that had more relaxed coronavirus guidelines and would be willing to host a large-scale event. Republican governors from Florida, Georgia and Texas quickly raised their hands.

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As for Charlotte, contracts that were made two years ago are regarded as ironclad, and money that was raised by committees to hold the four-day event there is still expected to be allocated to the city.

Still, Charlotte officials are reviewing the language of the deals and considering taking legal action against the RNC.

"We have yet to receive any official notification from the Republican National Committee regarding its intent for the location of the convention. We have a contract in place with the RNC to host the convention and the City Attorney will be in contact with the attorneys for the RNC to understand their full intentions," the city wrote in a statement Wednesday.

There are major unanswered questions about all the hotels and flights that have been prepaid for by the more than 2,000 delegates who had already planned to be in Charlotte.

In one scenario, Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel could gavel in the convention in North Carolina and then a significant proportion of attendees would travel together to the next site, where the president and the vice president might deliver their speeches.

Of the places GOP officials are exploring, Florida has been most aggressive in courting Republicans. A person familiar with the discussions said Florida particularly is a state to watch given the extent to which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a close Trump ally, has been pushing for it.

But Trump could let the process play out a little longer.

"My guess is they will let this process get competitive," this person said.

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Republicans look at multi-city convention for Trump's renomination - NBC News

In Wisconsins Fond du Lac County, the local GOP chairman, Rohn Bishop, took the rare step of snapping back at the president on Twitter last week, replying to one of Trumps all-caps diatribes about voting by mail with a rant of his own: THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT MAIL IN VOTING WILL LEAD TO MASSIVE FRAUD AND ABUSE, Bishop wrote. IN FACT, WE MAY BE ABLE TO USE IT TO HELP OFFSET THE DEMOCRATS EARLY VOTING ADVANTAGES.

I kind of screamed at my computer, Bishop told me when I reached him by phone. Mail-in voting works well in Wisconsin, he said, and helps Republicans in rural parts of the state compete with Democratic strongholds that have more resources to dedicate to in-person early voting. Because rural counties dont open many early-voting locations, voting by mail is more important. I just think we can use it to help [Trump] here, Bishop said.

Read: Americas elections wont be the same after 2020

In rural America, theres a bigger risk to Trumps attacks on mail balloting than merely annoying Republican officials. Trumps rhetoric may inadvertently be suppressing Republican votes, Michael McDonald, an elections expert at the University of Florida, told me. A reluctance among GOP voters to use the system could lead to longer lines at polling sites, which in turn could discourage voter turnout in places where Trump is stronger, especially if the pandemic remains a factor in November, he explained.

The Postal Service could be another problem. Trump is opposed to efforts to shore up the beleaguered agency in preparation for a surge in mail-in ballots. But delays in mail service could disproportionately affect rural areas, especially if Republicans are simultaneously fighting changes that would relax deadlines requiring ballots to be received, and not merely postmarked, by Election Day. More of the rural ballots are getting returned later, McDonald said.

In Pennsylvania, more Democrats than Republicans requested absentee ballots in every county in the run-up to this weeks primary elections, and the surge of late requests prompted Governor Tom Wolf to extend the deadline for returning ballots by a week in several counties, including Philadelphia. That potential for a late surge is exactly whats causing stateswhether led by Republicans or Democratsto prepare for the possibility of a huge demand for mail voting this fall.

And it means that GOP leaders in many of these states are telling their voters to support Trumpand also, implicitly, to ignore him. Were giving people the choice, Gruters, the Florida GOP chairman, told me. If you want to vote by mail, vote by mail.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

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The Republicans Telling Their Voters to Ignore Trump - The Atlantic

While the past few days have felt unprecedented in almost all respects, theyve been familiar in at least one way: President Trump has once again done something widely viewed as outrageous. In this case, his administration had law enforcement officials clear a path for Trump to visit a nearby church, leading to protesters being tear gassed outside the White House.

And, as has often been the case when Trump draws criticism, many GOP senators have evaded questions about the violence and Trumps role in it. I dont have any reaction to it. I havent seen footage. I didnt follow, Im sorry. And even, He has moments. But I mean, as you know, it lasts generally as long as the next tweet.

Yet maybe this time is a little different. Even before the protesters were driven away from the White House, wed begun to hear a number of strong condemnations of both Trump and how he was handling the protests across the country some from familiar corners and others from more surprising sources, like military leaders.

On the usual suspects list theres Sens. Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Ben Sasse and Lisa Murkowski (although Murkowski avoided saying much about the protests specifically, she did say she is struggling with whether to vote for Trump in 2020). But some current and former members of the presidents inner circle have also criticized him. Most notably, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who resigned in protest in December 2018, issued a scathing rebuke of Trumps actions on Wednesday night, writing, We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. (He also said, The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values our values as people and our values as a nation.) Current Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has also objected to using active-duty troops to respond to mostly peaceful protests.

Former President George W. Bush also weighed in on the side of the protesters, writing, The only way to see ourselves in a true light is to listen to the voices of so many who are hurting and grieving. Those who set out to silence those voices do not understand the meaning of America. Bush didnt name Trump directly, but its still a telling rebuke from a former president of the same political party.

This is one of those rare moments of uncertainty when its possible that the wall of Republican support sheltering Trump finally crumbles. It is still unlikely to happen, but as Ive written before, if it does happen, it will happen suddenly.

Political science helps us understand why this is the case. In my previous article, I cited political scientist Timur Kurans classic work, Private Truth, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification, to help explain why:

[Kuran] argues that political regimes can persist despite being unpopular, which is why a government overthrow, when it does come, can often seem so sudden.

Consider the Arab Spring, which began with one Tunisian vendor, who protested being mistreated by government officials by setting himself on fire. His death triggered a series of events, and a month later, the long-unpopular authoritarian Tunisian president fled the country after more than 23 years in power. A few weeks later, protesters in Egypt ousted their own long-serving authoritarian leader. What looked like ironclad power collapsed in a matter of weeks. Why?

Kuran argues in his book that protests need a critical mass of supporters in order to force change. The logic is that theres safety in numbers, so if multiple citizens rise up in protest of a regime, it signals that its OK to protest which can cause decades-old regimes to collapse all at once.

Of course, so far the criticism against Trump has mostly come from retired generals or members of Congress who already had a history of publicly chastising the president. But as conflict escalates over the protests, more and more elected Republicans may start to speak up.

After all, Trumps continued unpopularity threatens to weigh down Republicans chances of holding on to the Senate or taking back the House, and head-to-head polling shows Biden holds a steady lead against Trump in the general election. Is it possible, then, that Republican leaders might privately be wondering if theyd be better off with somebody else on the ticket in November? With unemployment at historic levels, protests spreading and the coronavirus pandemic lingering, Trump faces an increasingly difficult path to reelection.

Most likely, Senate and House Republicans will eventually find a way to defend Trumps actions, as they have done before (remember the impeachment trial?). Trump may not be perfect, they may say, but the Democrats are much worse. This is the prevailing rationalization of our zero-sum politics.

But in moments like this, when nobody knows exactly what to say or do, a few unlikely public critiques of Trump could have a surprising cascade effect. And if the president continues to transgress widely-shared democratic values putting congressional Republicans in an increasingly difficult electoral position we may yet see a consequential crack in the Republican Party.

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If Republicans Are Ever Going To Turn On Trump, This Might Be The Moment - FiveThirtyEight

Representative Steve King of Iowa, the nine-term Republican with a history of racist comments who only recently became a party pariah, lost his bid for renomination early Wednesday, one of the biggest defeats of the 2020 primary season in any state.

Mr. King was defeated by Randy Feenstra, a state senator, who had the backing of mainstream state and national Republicans who found Mr. King an embarrassment and, crucially, a threat to a safe Republican seat if he were on the ballot in November.

The loss was most likely the final political blow to one of the nations most divisive elected officials, whose insults of undocumented immigrants foretold the messaging of President Trump, and whose flirtations with extremism led him far from rural Iowa, to meetings with anti-Muslim crusaders in Europe and an endorsement of a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties.

In interviews over the years, voters in Iowas most conservative region downplayed Mr. Kings incendiary comments. His loss after 18 years in office was mainly because opponents painted him as ineffective after party leaders in Congress stripped him of his committee assignments last year.

That move came after comments that Mr. King made in an interview with The New York Times in 2019, in which he asked, White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive?

The remarks caused an uproar. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, told Mr. King to find another line of work.

Instead, Mr. King clung to his seat, claiming to be the victim of Republican insiders and of the news media.

Now Mr. Feenstra, a political and social conservative in a deep-red district in northwest Iowa, is the odds-on favorite to hold the seat against J.D. Scholten, who nearly defeated Mr. King two years ago and ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.

The belief that Mr. King, who had crushed earlier primary opponents, was vulnerable this year drew four challengers, including Mr. Feenstra; Jeremy Taylor, a former state lawmaker; and two businessmen, Bret Richards and Steve Reeder. All four opponents campaigned as equally conservative as Mr. King on red-meat issues like abortion and gun rights, but they promised more effective representation of the district after Mr. King lost his committee assignments.

Our Fourth District desperately needs a seat at the table, Mr. Feenstra said at a debate last month, calling for the district to have an effective conservative voice.

Although there was a question of whether the four challengers would split voters opposed to Mr. King too many ways and allow him to skate through, Mr. Feenstras margin was decisive, 46 percent to 36 percent for Mr. King.

In comments Mr. King recorded on Facebook after his loss, he said none of his challengers had taken issue with a single statement that I have made during his career, and he urged Iowans to continue to teach our children well about values we care about, including opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

His defeat, he said, was the result of an effort to push out the strongest voice for full-spectrum constitutional, Christian conservatism in Congress.

Mr. Feenstra promised during the campaign to be an unflagging social and fiscal conservative in Congress. Ill fight with President Trump to build the wall, he said at a candidate forum, boasting that he had voted in the Iowa Senate to ban sanctuary cities and defund Planned Parenthood. As a lawmaker, he co-sponsored a bill to define life as beginning at conception. He ran on his support of Iowas largest tax cut in history, in 2018, which a state Department of Revenue analysis showed aimed the highest benefits to the wealthy.

Mr. Feenstra was the preferred candidate of establishment Republicans, and he easily outraised Mr. King, bringing in $925,800 to Mr. Kings $331,000. He won endorsements from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Right to Life Committee. And in an extraordinary rebuke of Mr. King by House colleagues, five Republican congressmen donated to Mr. Feenstras campaign.

Anticipating the general election, Mr. Scholten on Wednesday indicated he would run a populist campaign around economic issues, while accusing Mr. Feenstra of siding with corporate donors. Not being Steve King isnt enough for this district, he said. It wont be enough to revitalize rural communities, ensure farmers get a fair price and can stay on their land, or for families to afford health care and save for retirement. We need someone with vision and the ability to bring people together. Thats not Feenstra.

During the primary, Mr. Feenstra refrained from attacking Mr. Kings years of demeaning comments about immigrants he once compared Dreamers to drug mules with calves the size of cantaloupes and instead portrayed the congressman as powerless to help Iowans.

Mr. King, 71, claimed during the campaign that Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, had privately pledged to help him regain his committee assignments. But Mr. McCarthy denied having said any such thing, adding that if the Republican Steering Committee, which decides on committee roles, met again to weigh in on Mr. King, he would not win back his posts.

Even before facing Republican discipline in the House in January 2019 after the Times interview, Mr. King was in electoral trouble. He just barely won re-election in 2018 over Mr. Scholten, a former professional baseball player, by three percentage points in a district Mr. Trump carried by nearly 30 points.

Just before that election, the head of the Republican House campaign arm, Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, denounced Mr. King for his endorsement of the Toronto mayoral candidate, Faith Goldy, who has espoused white nationalism, and for comments seeming to embrace the Great Replacement, a far-right conspiracy theory. We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior, Mr. Stivers said at the time.

A paradox of Mr. Kings career is that, in his anti-immigrant language and policies, he was years ahead of Mr. Trump, who won the presidency by stirring fears about nonwhite immigrants.

Well before Mr. Trump promised to build a wall on the southwest border, Mr. King, who founded an earth-moving company, stood on the House floor and showed off a model of a 12-foot border wall of his own design.

Soon after Mr. Trump took office, he invited Mr. King who even then was snubbed by establishment Republicans like the former House speaker John A. Boehner to the Oval Office. The president boasted to Mr. King of having supported him, and raised money for him during an Iowa visit in 2014, Mr. King told The Times.

In the past, Mr. King routinely won the backing of other Iowa Republicans, including Gov. Kim Reynolds, who named him a co-chair of her 2018 election campaign. He sought to be a kingmaker in presidential politics given Iowas early-voting role. In 2015 he played host to a forum for 2016 hopefuls, including Mr. Trump, who attacked Jeb Bush for saying that immigrants enter the United States in an act of love.

Say what? Mr. Trump said. Half of them are criminals!

For two decades Steve King has been something of the sun in the political universe around here, Douglas Burns, an owner of newspapers in Mr. Kings district, said on Tuesday night. Ill still have to see the eclipse tomorrow to believe these results.

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Steve King, House Republican With a History of Racist Remarks, Loses Primary - The New York Times