In the spring, James Blair, political director for the Trump campaign, called a meeting in West Palm Beach. The occasion: Marc Elias had changed the world.

It was Elias who had petitioned the Federal Election Commission at the beginning of the year to allow a George Soros-funded political action committee to coordinate with campaigns. And the Democratic super lawyer had won. A nine-page advisory opinion followed in March. For the first time, the FEC ruled that federal candidates could coordinate with outside organizations. And now politics would change forever.

Blair sensed opportunity. All he had to do, the reason he gathered the most loyal MAGA captains of the biggest grassroots armies around a conference table inside Trump campaign headquarters last April, was convince them to accept a little heresy. The political director had to teach them to love the mail-in ballot.

Trump had taught his base to hate mail balloting, a practice he blamed for his loss in 2020. Now Blair was urging the former president’s most faithful followers to embrace what was previously verboten. According to sources inside the room that day, the conversion did not go smoothly.

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, balked. A confidant of the Trump family, Kirk and his lieutenant Tyler Bowyer were allegedly “horrified” by the idea of pushing absentee ballots for fear of alienating MAGA diehards. Ned Ryun, CEO of American Majority Action, insisted absentee ballots were half the battle, arguing that Republican hopes would languish in long lines on Election Day without them. One source described the mood that day as “snippy.”

Turning Point spokesman Andrew Kolvet dismissed that characterization and told RealClearPolitics the organization was making plans as early as 2022 to “hammer home” the early vote.

“There were skeptics,” Blair said in retrospect. Without singling anyone out, he told RCP that “less sophisticated” operatives on the right still subscribed to “this theory that ‘well, if the votes come in early, then [Democrats] know how many they need to cheat.’” His counter-argument as he showed the grassroots the math: “No, once a vote is banked, that’s good.”

This was easier said than done, as Trump had hardwired a deep distrust into the minds of millions of Republicans by arguing that anything other than same-day voting was synonymous with fraud. “We have to get rid of mail-in ballots,” Trump said during his January victory speech after winning the Iowa caucuses. As he began his easy march through the GOP primary field, Trump added, “Once you have mail-in ballots, you have crooked elections.”

Data alone would not be enough to convince the base to abandon that belief. Only Trump could change their minds. “He had to create the permission structure for his voters,” Blair explained, “which is that voting early, whether by mail or in person, can be a pathway to victory, not to defeat.”

Clearing a primary field of Republican challengers too afraid to attack him was one thing. Unseating an incumbent president would be another. Enter Susie Wiles.

She came from Florida, just like Blair, where Republicans had built majorities for decades despite being outnumbered by Democrats on registered voter rolls. As campaign co-chair, she had just helped Trump brush aside the primary challenge of Florida’s own governor. Then Wiles looked to the general election, directing Blair to draft a memo outlining a new Trump way to win. In short, they planned to export the Florida model.

They laid out the data, pointed to successful case studies, and ran sophisticated election simulations. But the final argument that changed Trump’s mind? “Look, sir,” the former president was told, according to sources familiar with the discussions, “people are really excited to vote for you, and they want to vote for you as soon as they have the chance to vote.” On the evening of April 19, in characteristic all caps, Trump did something very uncharacteristic: He reversed himself and blessed the mail ballot. Wrote the former president on his social media website Truth Social:

ABSENTEE VOTING, EARLY VOTING, AND ELECTION DAY VOTING ARE ALL GOOD OPTIONS. REPUBLICANS MUST MAKE A PLAN, REGISTER, AND VOTE!

Once the green light was given, the Trump machine kicked into another gear. They would still drive........

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