Trump flip-flopped on absentee voting -- but don't expect his supporters to start trusting the system now, political scientist says

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

56% : CNN reported that ranking Republicans have recently embraced early and mail-in voting -- and Trump may be following suit in an attempt to have the strongest turnout during this year's election.
52% : He added that the Truth Social post sounds like a statement a GOP official or campaign staffer would encourage Trump to post to drum up enthusiasm for the coming election.
43% : "Because the conspiracy theories have flourished in part from Trump, but also from a whole lot of media for the last decade or so, that damage is, to some extent, permanent," Grossman told Business Insider.
39% : Trump has previously targeted "mail-in ballots," claiming their widespread use in 2020 would lead to "the most RIGGED Election in our nations history," The Los Angeles Times reported.
36% : Representatives for Trump responded to a request for comment from Business Insider, saying his Friday statement "speaks for itself," and declined to answer further questions.
32% : The latest remarks split decisively from the rhetoric Trump has espoused over the better part of the last decade, in which he has repeatedly claimed the voting system is rigged and rife with fraud.
29% : But even if Trump suddenly had a change of heart, Grossman said, it would be too late to reverse the damage he has done by sowing doubt in the electoral system.
29% : Trump's most stringent supporters, Grossman noted, aren't likely to suddenly have faith in our electoral procedures just because Trump changed his messaging on the topic a few months ahead of the election.
26% : Nicholas Grossman, an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois, told Business Insider it's unlikely Trump will maintain his newfound position supporting absentee and early voting.
21% : ""If Trump loses, he's going to lie about it like he did in 2020.
19% : Special Counsel Jack Smith, in his effort to prove Trump attempted to illegally overturn the 2020 election results, has pointed to social media posts as far back as 2012 -- in which Trump claimed without evidence that voting machines switched ballots cast for candidate Mitt Romney to votes for then-candidate Barack Obama -- as proof Trump has intentionally "sowed mistrust in the results of the presidential election" for years.

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