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Florida's elections system, which has been the butt of political jokes for 

, got a reprieve this week, as President Donald Trump seemed to indicate it was the only state he felt confident could run a vote-by-mail system.

"Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True," Trump tweeted Tuesday. "I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail!"

Similarly, in Tuesday's White House press briefing, he said the state has "really got a great system of absentee ballots," marking the first time he's expressed confidence in a state's ability to administer wide scale mail balloting since the pandemic took hold of the U.S. in the spring.

But political experts say his compliments were less about the Sunshine State's ability to keep elections secure, and more about kowtowing to a political reality: he can't win the state if Republicans there feel like they can't vote by mail.

"Florida is an absolute must-have for Trump and everyone knows that, and he knows it as well," said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida. "And if he suddenly, through attacking vote-by-mail, keeps a substantial group of Florida voters from going to the polls, that's not good for his chances of winning."

MacManus said Trump also faced pushback from Republicans in the state who alerted him to the fact that Democrats were capitalizing on his comments and building a substantial lead in the amount of vote-by-mail requests.

As of Wednesday, more than 600,000 more Democrats had requested mail ballots than Republicans, 

 the University of Florida's Michael McDonald. For comparison: in the 

, Republican Ron DeSantis beat Democrat Andrew Gillum by fewer than 50,000 votes.

 that 59 percent of voters who "lean Democratic" said they would prefer to vote via mail ballot compared to just 21 percent of Republican-leaning voters.

"This is a state where elections are won by a half or one percent only," MacManus said.

The president and his allies have spent much of the past few months maligning many forms of mail ballot systems, from states that mail ballots to all registered voters to states that only planned to send registered voters request forms for mail ballots.

 earlier this summer for instance, Attorney General William Barr indicated that he was comfortable with states allowing mail ballots for cases where someone would be "traveling around the world" but that allowing universal access to mail balloting would lead to rampant fraud.

Yet Florida has allowed voters to cast mail ballots without an excuse for well over a decade, since 2002. And traditionally, it's been Republicans who have benefited from that policy according to Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Republican strategist in Florida who recently left the GOP because of Trump.

 earlier this year, "are typically Republicans' friends in Florida."

 for Florida voters to request a mail ballot is Oct. 22. The question, 

, is whether Trump's recent about-face on the security of Florida's mail ballot system will help make that true once again.   

Politics and Government News

Election 2020

Miles Parks

Author

Democrats lead Republicans in mail ballot requests in the state by 600,000, leading to pressure on the president to relent in his attack on mail voting.

Attacking vote-by-mail was hurting Trump in Fla., experts say. So he changed course

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