The chairman of the Iowa Republican Party said his party will spend “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to mobilize voters this year. Jeff Kaufmann said the priority is to get Republicans out to vote before Election Day.

“I understand tradition. I understand grandparents wanting to take their grandchildren to vote. I understand that and I respect that,” Kaufmann says, “but here’s the thing: Every penny has to be maximized.”

According to Kaufmann, once an Iowa Republican votes early, the party will no longer call them or send them reminders in the mail or pay people to knock on their door and ask about their voting plan. While former President Trump said his goal was for all votes to be cast by Election Day, Trump has called early voting and mail-in voting an “acceptable option” in 2024.

“I think he’s starting to realize, I know the campaign is starting to realize that they have to engage in this,” Kaufmann said, “so our Republican Party, we’re going to put a lot of resources into mail-in voting and tracking them down.”

Democrats have embraced early voting for years. In 2022, for example, they had a significant lead in early voting a week before Election Day. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said that as this year’s election approaches, she has a simple message for her Republican colleagues.

“We have to ‘rack up the votes, rack up the votes, rack up the votes.’ We have to learn how to play their game,” Reynolds said. “We have a very safe election in the state of Iowa.”

Reynolds and Kaufmann made their comments last night at a fundraiser for House Speaker Pat Grassley. Grassley’s grandfather, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, concluded his speech by announcing his intention to vote early.

“You don’t know what the future holds. Vote as soon as you can, in accordance with the laws of Iowa,” said Sen. Grassley. “… This is a perilous time for this country, and we can’t just wonder what will happen on November 5th. We need to fix this before November 5th.”

Iowans can now submit absentee ballot requests to their county auditor. County auditors can begin mailing ballots to voters on October 16. Iowa’s early voting period used to be 40 days before Election Day, but Republican lawmakers have moved to shorten the early voting window to 20 days. And absentee ballots must be at the county auditor’s office by 8 p.m. on Election Day.