Lara Trump says RNC needs to use 'legal ballot harvesting' to beat Democrats

As the 2024 election season now pivots to the general election with Joe Biden and Donald Trump both becoming their respective party’s presumptive nominees on Tuesday evening, Lara Trump, the new co-chair of the Republican National Committee, urged that "legal ballot harvesting" be used by the party to defeat Democrats in November.

"We’ve been playing checkers, and the Democrats have been playing chess," Trump, daughter-in-law to former President Trump, told the Washington Examiner. "Unfortunately, we don’t have one day of voting, we don’t have paper ballots, we don’t have voter ID everywhere. So we have to play the hand that we’re dealt." 

"That way, we have votes banked as we head into Election Day, and we’re not playing catch up on November 5 with the Democrats," Trump, who was elected to her position on Friday, said.

Trump stressed that "We need to be doing legal ballot harvesting," adding that this was "something that has never been done by the RNC, but I can promise you will be a huge part of what we’re planning to do."

"And then come Election Day, and you’ll see that, I think, it’s not just about having poll watchers. It’s about having trained poll watchers and lawyers at locations around the country as necessary. And these are people who will be trained and able to physically count how many ballots are coming in. And how many ballots are going out."

Speaking on the RNC after Ronna McDaniel stepped down from her position as chair of the committee, Trump said her goal is to "have people’s trust restored in our electoral process."

"Truthfully, people have felt like they don’t know if/when they donate their money to the RNC, it will ultimately go to the causes that they care about,” Trump said. “I hope to be there as someone who will ensure that, indeed, every single dollar donated goes to making sure we win on Election Day — at the top of the ballot and down the ballot."

In February of 2023, the Trump campaign said in a fundraising email that "The radical Democrats have used ballot harvesting to cancel out YOUR vote and walk away with elections that they NEVER should have won. But I’m doing something HUGE to fight back."

"Our path forward is to MASTER the Democrats’ own game of harvesting ballots in every state we can. But that also means we need to start laying the foundation for victory RIGHT NOW.”