Hegseth begs for mail-in votes while Trump trashes mail-in voting

Facebook Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window)Bluesky Share on X (Opens in new window)X Share using Native toolsShareCopied to clipboard Save 30 Comments Add Daily Kos to Google Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listens as President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while traveling aboard Air Force One on March 7, 2026.AP It seems like the fact that things are getting hella dire for the GOP’s midterm election prospects may just have broken through the fog of war. Or, because we’re talking about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, it’s more like it broke through the fog of nicotine pouches, cheap whiskey, and testosterone injections. 

Hegseth faced his fears by filming a video, one where he is exceedingly shiny, begging the troops to ask for mail-in ballots because guys, guys, “All of these processes are straightforward and protected by law.”

Hmm. Tell that to your boss, who has been howling that mail-in ballots are “corrupt and out of control.” Your boss, who has been busy losing his mind over how the Supreme Court not letting him screw with mail-in ballots is one of their “shockingly bad rulings that are of such magnitude that it won’t be easily possible for our Country to recover or heal.”

But you see, there are good mail-in voters, and bad mail-in voters. When President Donald Trump votes by mail, that is cool and good and legal, and apparently that is the case for active-duty military personnel as well, at least in the soft brains of both Hegseth and Trump. 

But there’s a problem. Military personnel vote at much, much lower rates than civilians do—over 20 percentage points less in both the 2020 and 2024 elections. 

Hegseth clearly knows this, as part of his shiny-faced video is him bemoaning that 300,000 troops didn’t register or cast votes in 2024. 

Now, data on active-duty military voter preferences is less available than that of veterans, but the latter skew pretty heavily Republican. It’s painfully evident Hegseth is hoping that is also true for current enlistees and that they could help rescue what looks to be the worst GOP election in decades. 

Hegseth isn’t subtle about this in his little video. He specifically frames those missing 300,000 military voters as “more than the ballots cast in cities like Detroit, Boston, Milwaukee, or Seattle.”

The problem Hegseth faces is that Trump has already managed to put quite a dent in confidence in voting by mail, particularly with people who will vote for Trumpy types. A staggering 70% of GOP voters and 75% of people who self-identify as “MAGA” say there is fraud when people can vote by mail. 

Related | When you’re president, voting by mail is fine, Trump says

The administration has been trying to thread a needle here by saying that somehow this wholesale assault on mail-in voting doesn’t apply to the military and those Good Strong American Votes will magically be counted. However, election experts keep explaining that, were Trump to get his way, there’s no magic way military mail-in ballots will for sure be recognized and delivered amid the chaotic push to throw out as many mail-in ballots as Trump has decided, in his fevered brain, are actually illegal.

All of these people spent years screaming that mail-in balloting is fraudulent, and Hegseth hoping he can reverse that at the last minute is a pretty slender reed to hang the GOP’s electoral hopes on.

We can’t wait to watch all your faves get crushed, Pete. The troops will not save you.

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