{"id":69437,"date":"2026-08-23T18:58:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T18:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/69437\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T18:58:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T18:58:26","slug":"will-trump-interfere-in-the-midterms-democrats-and-their-allies-are-preparing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/69437\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Trump interfere in the midterms? Democrats and their allies are preparing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Big-city mayors are giving poll workers panic buttons in case election skeptics question their work. County and state officials are gaming out<\/a> responses to immigration raids near voting centers.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for Democratic states and civic groups are pre-writing legal challenges<\/a> to ballot seizures. And Democratic aides in Washington are preparing members of Congress to push back in the court of public opinion against any baseless claims of voter fraud in competitive districts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Across California and the nation, civic organizations, voting rights advocates and Democratic leaders are preparing for<\/a> a raft of potential actions by the Trump administration to interfere in, subvert or deny November\u2019s midterm vote.<\/p>\n

President Trump, an election denier for years, has without evidence described the U.S. election system as badly corrupted by fraud and dangerously vulnerable to both domestic and foreign interference.<\/p>\n

He has said he would do \u201canything necessary\u201d<\/a> to have \u201chonest elections,\u201d and has tried since returning to office to unilaterally rewrite the rules for voting nationwide and wrest control of elections from the states through executive orders and other administrative measures.<\/p>\n

Now, he has declined to rule out additional and unprecedented steps to force his will on the November election, including through emergency declarations and military deployments, and in February suggested Republicans should simply take over voting<\/a> in blue states.<\/p>\n

Election experts say there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in American elections, despite Trump\u2019s allies searching for years.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A worker looks through ballots at a Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center on Monday, June 8, 2026 in City of Industry, CA. Counting continues on ballots cast for the state\u2019s primary election held June 2.<\/p>\n

(Eric Thayer\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Much of the work to resist any Trump interference or power grab is being done quietly to avoid revealing too much of the strategy to the Trump administration or stoking unnecessary fear among voters.<\/p>\n

It is designed to match what Trump\u2019s opponents see as his three-part \u201cinterference playbook\u201d \u2014 to \u201cdeceive\u201d voters before the election, \u201cdisrupt\u201d the vote itself and \u201cdeny\u201d any unfavorable results after, said Justin Vail of Protect Democracy, a prominent litigant against the administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe threats are real,\u201d Vail said, \u201cbut the preparation is larger and more coordinated than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scenarios being planned for include the president deploying troops or immigration agents to polling sites<\/a> to intimidate voters, fomenting unrest as a pretext to declare a national emergency, claiming fraud in the ballot counts of key congressional races or commanding the U.S. Postal Service to intervene in mail ballot delivery. <\/p>\n

All told, the efforts amount to an unprecedented exercise to ensure the nation\u2019s elections are safe from its own federal government.<\/p>\n

They also reflect a deterioration in trust between states and counties overseeing elections, voting rights and pro-democracy advocates and a federal administration that has denigrated their work and tried to take control of voting<\/a> away from states.<\/p>\n

As public frustration with the economy<\/a> mounts and Trump\u2019s approval rating sinks<\/a>, Democrats have become hopeful their party will retake power in Congress. Trump, meanwhile, has suggested<\/a> that alleged election integrity problems will be the culprit if Republicans lose.<\/p>\n

In California, 61% of voters<\/a> recently identified federal inference in November as a \u201cmajor concern,\u201d according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by The Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are taking this threat really seriously,\u201d said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who helped form a Senate task force to prepare. \u201cPolitically, I\u2019m very optimistic about the midterms. But I\u2019m also deeply concerned with the president\u2019s willingness to interfere with them \u2014 and the fact that, unlike even in 2020, where there were at least some people around him to try to constrain what he was doing, all those people are gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"President <\/p>\n

President Donald Trump is seen on a screen as his supporters cheer during a rally on the National Mall on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation\u2019s capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden\u2019s Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

(Samuel Corum \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Much of the work is legal preparation among Democratic state attorneys general and lawyers with leading civic organizations. Nothing is being ruled out after Trump\u2019s supporters, at his goading<\/a>, violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, following his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

Other preparation is political, as members of Congress, mayors and other elected officials position themselves to use their bully pulpits and legislative powers to punch back. And grassroots campaigns are also unfolding, as community leaders recruit voters to defend their local elections, including online.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an all-hands-on-deck task,\u201d said Skye Perryman, president of the nonpartisan legal organization Democracy Forward. \u201cWe\u2019re anticipating scenarios we haven\u2019t seen before in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, who has never accepted his 2020 loss to Biden despite scores of reviews and audits confirming the result, has consistently sought to undermine Americans\u2019 trust in elections, telling<\/a> the nation in a prime-time speech last month that the voting system was \u201cbroken\u201d and claiming<\/a> that the SAVE America Act, <\/a>a strict Republican-proposed voter ID and citizenship measure, is necessary to fix it.<\/p>\n

The White House said it wouldn\u2019t respond to hypothetical questions about the midterm election, but said anyone who breaks voting laws will be held accountable. Lauren Bis, a White House spokesperson, blamed \u201cextreme liberal Democrats\u201d for undermining U.S. confidence in elections by blocking the SAVE America Act, which Trump has failed to push through Congress.<\/p>\n

Bis claimed voters support such changes, and said \u201cPresident Trump is absolutely right: We fix this now, or we lose our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Causes for concern<\/p>\n

The fears of interference are driven by Trump\u2019s long record of election denial<\/a>; his recent insistence that the midterms are vulnerable to both domestic fraud and foreign interference; his success installing loyalists and fellow election deniers in powerful positions throughout his government<\/a>; and his current administration\u2019s many attempts to usurp control over state voting processes, including through executive orders<\/a>, lawsuits and legislation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump and his allies have sued to compel blue states to turn over voter rolls<\/a>; seized ballots<\/a> in Georgia; tried to limit mail voting via new U.S. Postal Service rules<\/a>; pushed stricter citizenship and voter ID requirements<\/a> via executive order and in Congress; diminished independent agencies<\/a> tasking with helping states<\/a> secure elections; kicked off a nationwide gerrymandering effort<\/a> to boost Republican chances in the House; and threatened to imprison Democratic leaders<\/a> who stand in their way.<\/p>\n

\"Sen. <\/p>\n

Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) (C) departs after a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and Republican senators at the U.S. Capitol on June 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. President Trump is visiting Capitol Hill to attend a closed-door luncheon with the Republican Senate Steering Committee to push his SAVE America Act, which would impose strict voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements in federal elections.<\/p>\n

(Kevin Dietsch \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Some analysts saw Trump\u2019s speech<\/a> last month as laying the groundwork<\/a> for greater intervention in November, and he raised further alarm this month by entertaining a suggestion<\/a> from conservative radio host and election conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn Root that the president has \u201cthe right to declare a national security emergency\u201d to unilaterally enforce new voting restrictions. <\/p>\n

\u201cStranger things have happened,\u201d Trump responded.<\/p>\n

The White House has previously downplayed the likelihood of immigration agents being deployed to polling locations, but Trump has refused to rule it out. Legal experts say such a move would probably be swiftly blocked by courts, as would any unlawful deployment of military troops to polls.<\/p>\n

Some voting experts said Trump\u2019s efforts shouldn\u2019t be blown out of proportion, particularly given federal courts\u2019 dim view of them to date.<\/p>\n

David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, noted Trump\u2019s executive orders on elections were blocked<\/a>, the Justice Department is 0 for 23<\/a> in cases demanding state voter rolls<\/a>, and the primaries have run smoothly with high turnout<\/a> \u2014 showing the president is \u201chaving very little effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said it is \u201cimportant that people be aware that there are threats, but to not let those threats be debilitating\u201d or prevent them from voting.<\/p>\n

Civic experts are urging regular voters to help debunk misinformation about voting within their communities. Democracy Forward has asked people to take one civic-minded action per day leading up to the election, while Indivisible, a progressive grassroots organization, is training volunteers nationwide to mount public push-back to any interference.<\/p>\n

Coordination in Congress<\/p>\n

A Senate aide who spoke with The Times on condition of anonymity said members of the Senate task force meet regularly to plan for as many potential forms of interference as possible \u2014 and that there is \u201cno bottom\u201d to what they\u2019re considering.<\/p>\n

Task force members are studying nuanced local election laws to understand how Congress members should respond to any federal interference in their home states, and working on \u201ccoordinated messaging\u201d that all members can use in response to immigration raids or other broad interference, the aide said.<\/p>\n

\"National <\/p>\n

National Guard troops stand in the shade at The Park at LeDroit in Northwest on August 12, 2026 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Donald Trump is claiming credit for Washington\u2019s dramatic crime decline a year after Trump sent thousands of National Guard troops to the nation\u2019s Capitol, but the evidence shows crime was already falling before his federal intervention and the extent to which his policies accelerated that decline remains disputed.<\/p>\n

(Andrew Harnik \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

They are also reading \u201cline by line\u201d through recent legal decisions limiting National Guard deployments and other federal actions to identify any \u201cloopholes\u201d the administration might exploit.<\/p>\n

They are paying particular attention to districts with competitive congressional races and where past problems have arisen. In California, they\u2019ve studied the recent seizure of ballots<\/a> by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco<\/a> and the criticism of slow ballot counting<\/a> statewide, the aide said.<\/p>\n

Schiff said the scenario he is \u201cmost concerned\u201d about is one in which the president or his allies \u201cseed\u201d unrest in big cities to \u201cgive the president a pretext, Reichstag fire-like, to call out the military or invoke the Insurrection Act<\/a> or call out ICE or Border Patrol.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Reichstag fire erupted in the German parliament four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as chancellor in 1933, and was used to justify a sweeping crackdown on political opponents and the suspension of civil liberties \u2014 ushering in Nazi rule.<\/p>\n

Schiff said lawsuits will be a necessary but \u201cvery imperfect remedy\u201d in such a scenario, and Democrats will need to develop a more robust response combining \u201clitigation with mobilization\u201d and legislative oversight.<\/p>\n

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, which has election oversight, is helping to create an election observer program for hotly contested races, and has warned his colleagues<\/a> that he will call a vote on any election-related emergency Trump declares, so that they must co-sign or resist it.<\/p>\n

Separately in the House, staffers have been building their own \u201croad map\u201d for how to deal with a laundry list of \u201cterrible things that bad-faith actors who seek to subvert the election could do,\u201d with a principal focus on any ways they might disrupt the Jan. 3 swearing in of new Congress members, said a House aide involved in the preparations there, who spoke with The Times on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The U.S. Capitol, on July 20, 2026 in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n

(Tom Brenner \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

House staffers are also looking at how court imposed limits on Trump\u2019s emergency powers might be \u201cexploited, weaponized [or] ignored\u201d by the administration, including the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department is \u201cworking diligently\u201d to fulfill the demands of Trump\u2019s election-related executive order<\/a> purporting to \u201cstrengthen the integrity of our elections,\u201d which courts have blocked<\/a>, and has \u201cstatutory authority to enforce our nation\u2019s election laws, including through requesting state voter rolls,\u201d which courts have also blocked<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon<\/a>, who heads the department\u2019s civil rights division and has threatened local elections officials with legal consequences if they don\u2019t comply with her voter roll demands, said her division \u201chas a statutory mandate to enforce our federal voting rights laws, and ensuring the voting public\u2019s confidence in the integrity of our elections is a top priority of this administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

State and local preparations<\/p>\n

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said attorneys from his office and similar Democratic ones across the country are \u201chard at work planning, preparing, strategizing, researching, getting ready for all the different ways the Trump administration can break the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"California <\/p>\n

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, right, holds a press conference at the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday, May 14, 2026.<\/p>\n

(Christina House\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

That includes any attempts to seize ballots, deploy federal law enforcement or the military, or command the U.S. Postal Service to interfere with mail ballots, he said. \u201cThe right to vote is the right from which all other rights flow. It\u2019s fundamental. We need to protect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dean Logan, registrar-recorder and county clerk for Los Angeles County, said he has a responsibility to ensure that \u201celection operations remain secure and uninterrupted\u201d no matter the threat, and is taking steps to do so, though he declined to address potential acts by Trump. Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said big cities are also preparing, including to prevent harassment of voters or election workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cCities are where we host vote centers. It\u2019s where the volunteers come from, where people go with their questions,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cWe have to pay attention to national rhetoric. We have to be aware of anxiety that might \u2014 tensions that may \u2014 arise.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Big-city mayors are giving poll workers panic buttons in case election skeptics question their work. County and state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[36039,36042,432,1190,609,3863,8,11924,36041,9,15958,542,148,7,245,36040,1691,4843],"class_list":["post-69437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-ally","tag-ballot-count","tag-congress","tag-control","tag-election","tag-executive-order","tag-headlines","tag-member","tag-midterm","tag-news","tag-november","tag-president-trump","tag-state","tag-top-stories","tag-trump-administration","tag-trump-interference","tag-voter","tag-work"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/117146360879362550","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}