GOP prepared for pivotal court battles that could decide 2024 election
The Republican Party is determined not to be outmanned in the courts regarding the 2024 elections, with GOP leaders leaning heavily on a new, litigation-focused “election integrity” effort launched earlier this year in a bid to avoid many of the same pitfalls as 2020.
The two-pronged effort seeks to improve the GOP ground game across the country, both by recruiting and training poll observers and by adding more transparency to the voting process, senior Republican Party officials told Fox News Digital in an interview.
To date, they have recruited some 230,000 volunteers across the country, RNC officials said, including 5,000 lawyers concentrated primarily in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
On the eve of Election Day, it is the lawyers whose talents could be especially useful in the days and weeks to come.
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That is because the second half of the election integrity push focuses on litigation. Some of the lawsuits are aimed at ensuring “poll worker parity” and access for Republican observers at many election sites across the country, senior party officials told Fox News Digital.
However, they have also filed dozens of lawsuits aimed at cracking down on voter identification laws, tightening citizenship verification standards and adding new requirements for mail-in ballots and provisional ballots accepted by various states.
The Republican Party has been especially aggressive in filing these pre-election lawsuits, which officials describe as helping “set the rules of the road in key swing states.”
As of this writing, party officials said they have filed more than 130 lawsuits—the vast majority of the roughly 200 election-related lawsuits in the 2024 election.
While the flurry of GOP-led lawsuits have dominated headlines in the final race to Election Day—primarily in the seven swing states considered to hold outsize importance in determining the next president— Republican Party officials pointed to courtroom victories won as early as this summer as some of their biggest achievements.
One example was the RNC’s successful lawsuit against the city of Detroit in August.
The RNC had sued to add more Republican election inspectors to the city’s 300-plus voting precincts, citing a “7.5-to-one” ratio of Democrat inspectors to Republican inspectors. Republicans successfully argued that the disparity ran afoul of state law, which requires “an equal number, as nearly as possible” of election officials from both major political parties. More Republican observers were added as a result.
A more recent win occurred last week in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where a judge sided with the GOP’s request to extend early voting deadlines from Tuesday, Nov. 5, to Friday, Nov. 8.
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Republican officials have touted success in achieving more transparency in state elections.
“We really view this as making America’s elections run in a transparent and trustworthy way. And that’s a net positive for everyone in this country, regardless of Republican or Democrat [party affiliation],” a senior RNC official told Fox News Digital in an interview.
Still, on the eve of Election Day, it remains to be seen whether these efforts will have accomplished their stated goal of establishing more trust in U.S. elections.
That is because the concept of “election security” not only requires certain safeguards to be placed around the voter registration and ballot-casting process, but also that the voters themselves then trust the results of the vote as legitimate.
A fresh AP-NORC poll found that Democrats are far more likely than their Republican counterparts to express confidence in the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
The poll found that while 71% of registered Democratic voters said they have “a great deal” of confidence in the national election outcome, just one-third of their Republican counterparts, or 24%, reported the same.
SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS PENNSYLVANIA PROVISIONAL BALLOT RULING, IN A MAJOR LOSS FOR GOP
Looking ahead
While some of these lawsuits could be used by the RNC as a pretext to challenge the outcome of certain states after Election Day, legal experts said it is unclear what impact any of these legal challenges could have in contesting the results — even if the outcome in certain states is just as close as expected in a neck-and-neck election.
Courts are highly disinclined to take up cases after Election Day, Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, told Fox News in an interview.
“We want to have the game be fair, in the sense that there’s bright lines way before you ever get to Election Day,” McCarthy said. “So everybody has their eyes open about what the rules are.”
“It’s really hard to get a court to involve itself after an election has taken place and where they’re in a position of potentially changing the outcome of the election,” he added.
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That is especially true of the nation’s top court, Trey Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor and member of Congress, told Fox News Digital in an interview.
“I think the Supreme Court is very wary of being drawn into overtly political fights,” he said.
Trump receives round of last-minute endorsements from high-profile names
On the eve of the U.S. election, former President Donald Trump received a round of last-minute endorsements from high-profile names, including Joe Rogan and Roberto Clemente Jr., son of the baseball legend.
With less than 24 hours to go before the election, podcaster and comedian Rogan formally endorsed Trump for president, ending speculation.
Posting on X, Rogan highlighted his nearly three hour interview with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has already supported Trump.
“The great and powerful @elonmusk. If it wasn’t for him we’d be f—ed,” Rogan said. “He makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way.”
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Leaving no room for doubt, Rogan wrote, “For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump.”
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Earlier Monday, Robert Clemente Jr., son of the Puerto Rican baseball legend, formally endorsed Trump in the city where his father played.
Clemente Jr. joined Trump on stage in Pittsburgh where he praised the former commander-in-chief.
“For the first time, I had to take a step forward. It is very important for me to support this man, because I believe tomorrow is a change of time,” Clemente Jr. said. “My father, the name Clemente, what it means is goodwill and unity. I believe that your team is going to bring it all home. I believe in everything that you stand for right now,” he told Trump.
Earlier Monday, Randi Mahomes, the mother of star Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, endorsed Trump during a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In an exclusive video to OutKick, Randi Mahomes, wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat with a Chiefs sweatshirt revealed her endorsement of Trump.
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“Make America great again. Let’s do it. Woo!” Randi Mahomes said.
Additionally, Trump was joined on stage in Pittsburgh earlier Monday by podcast host Megyn Kelly, who touted the former president as a “protector of women.”
What we know about Georgia’s 4 million votes already cast ahead of Election Day
Millions of Americans are heading to the polls Tuesday to cast their Election Day ballots, and in battleground Georgia, more than half the state’s active voters have already done so.
The Peach State’s early voting period between Oct. 15 and Nov. 1 saw more than 4 million people vote either early in-person or absentee. That’s 55.5% of their active voting populace, according to Georgia’s Election Data Hub.
Both the Trump and Harris campaigns are pouring enormous resources into the state won by President Biden in 2020 by less than 1%.
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Here is what we know about who has voted in Georgia already:
More women than men
Female early voters in Georgia have outpaced male voters by double digits – something Vice President Kamala Harris’ allies see as a positive sign for Democrats, given their emphasis on abortion rights in the elections since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
Former President Trump has also made recent appeals to women voters, promising in several events over the last few days to “protect women” and warning they are “under attack” by illegal immigrants under the current Democratic administration.
In Georgia, 56% of early voters were women, while 43.8% were men.
Black women outpaced Black men
The gap between female and male voters in Georgia widened considerably when focused on Black voters.
Women made up 62.1% of Black voters who voted early in-person or absentee, while Black men trailed behind with 37.8%.
Black voters, women in particular, are still expected to favor Harris and the Democratic Party in broad numbers.
The Trump campaign, however, has worked to make inroads with Black men in key swing states like Georgia and North Carolina, with promises of economic prosperity under Republicans.
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White voters made up the largest share
A 58% majority of Georgia’s early voters were White, according to Georgia Votes, a data aggregation site partnered with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
That was followed by Black voters with 26.4% of the early vote.
Hispanic and Asian voters combined made up roughly 6% of early voters.
Black or African American Georgians make up roughly a third of the state’s population, according to the most recent census data.
Of the state’s active White voters, 63% have already voted, compared to 49.7% of active Black voters, the Georgia elections site says.
High turnout in rural counties
Counties considered more rural in Georgia have seen more of their active voters cast pre-Election Day ballots than more Democratic-leaning areas around Atlanta.
The 20 counties ranked highest in terms of percentage of total active voter turnout so far were all won by Trump in 2020, despite Biden winning the state overall.
The bluer counties in the Atlanta metropolitan area are still significantly larger than those rural counties where turnout is high – but in a race that came down to less than 12,000 votes in 2020, every ballot cast is critical.
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Most voters from Democratic strongholds
In terms of sheer numbers, the most early and absentee voters have been in Atlanta and its densely packed surrounding suburbs.
The top three counties in terms of turnout are Towns, Oconee and Dawson – all were won by Trump in 2020, but together the number of active voters who have cast ballots there already is just over 47,000.
By contrast, the counties of Henry, Cobb and Fulton – the third being home to the city of Atlanta itself – have seen less of their total active voting populations turn out before Election Day, but more than 861,000 ballots cast so far.
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Over 830,000 didn’t vote in 2020
One of the biggest questions of the Election Day post-mortem will be how more than 830,000 early voters who did not vote at all in 2020 cast their ballots this time around.
That group makes up roughly 21% of Georgia’s early voters, per Georgia Votes.
Roughly half of those voters are White and about a quarter are Black.
Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones told Fox News Digital last week that he believes those voters are largely Trump supporters who voted in 2016 but did not do so in 2020.
It’s worth noting, however, that the majority of early voters in Georgia also voted early in 2020.
Results of midnight vote in small town show Trump-Harris race is neck and neck
The first results of the 2024 election day are in from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, with former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris splitting the tiny town’s six votes.
The final count read out by officials around 12:10 a.m. on Tuesday morning were 3 for Trump and 3 for Harris.
In 2020, future President Joe Biden swept all the votes there. Back in 2016, four people voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton, two for Trump and one for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.
The six citizens of Dixville Notch, which is a remote unincorporated township in New Hampshire’s North Country region, cast their ballots at midnight.
Before voters cast their ballots, Cory Pesaturo, three-time world accordion champion, performed an accordion rendition of the national anthem as voters held their hands over their hearts.
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The tiny village began its tradition of midnight voting in 1960.
All eligible voters in the township – which totaled six in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary in January – gathered in Dixville’s Tillotson House, where voting remained open until everybody cast their ballot.
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Dixville Notch isn’t the only New Hampshire town which has grabbed national attention with midnight voting on Election Day.
Harts Location – in the state’s White Mountains – started midnight voting in 1948. And Millfield, which is near Dixville Notch in New Hampshire’s North Country, has also held midnight voting.
But in the 2024 general election, Dixville Notch was the only location in New Hampshire holding midnight voting.
Every four years – during the state’s presidential primary and the general election – reporters and media outlets from around the country and the globe descend on Dixville Notch to cover the midnight vote.
Tom Tillotson, the longtime town moderator of the vote, has noted that “we get our 15 minutes of fame every four years.”