What Trump doesn't want you to know about the 2026 midterms

The ongoing Trumpian plot to rig the midterms and end democracy is getting crazier and more dangerous by the day. The plot is also becoming increasingly layered and will likely continue all the way to next Jan. 3, when newly elected members of the Senate and every member of the House will be sworn into office.

This story originally appeared on TruthDig.

Keeping abreast of all the twists and turns as the scheme unfolds can be exhausting and overwhelming, and that’s exactly how our narcissist-in-chief and his assorted obergruppenführers want you to feel. But don’t give in. The plot is inherently flawed and, although we can never be certain, it will ultimately fail in the face of the president’s plummeting poll numbers, the deepening affordability crisis and the growing popular resistance movement.

In the meantime, here is a list of the plot’s main elements to help you stay informed, connected and, above all, engaged.

Nationalizing elections by executive order, declaring a national emergency and going to war

In a Feb. 2 appearance on former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino’s podcast, President Donald Trump called on Republicans to “take over“ and “nationalize“ voting in at least 15 states. As if on cue, the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank, convened an “election integrity summit” on Feb. 19. The confab was highlighted by a 30-person roundtable discussion on the need to persuade Trump to issue a new executive order that would give him unprecedented control over how federal elections are run.

A who’s who of high-profile election deniers attended the summit, including Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser; attorney Cleta Mitchell, who directs the aptly misnamed Election Integrity Network; and failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Also in attendance, according to ProPublica, was Kurt Olsen, a White House lawyer who is reinvestigating the 2020 election, along with other administration officials.

Initially drafted in 2025 and currently being updated, the proposed order totals 17 pages. It would authorize Trump to declare an emergency under the National Emergencies Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to counter alleged foreign interference in elections by requiring strict voter ID procedures, accelerating voting roll purges, banning mail-in ballots and getting rid of voting machines in favor of hand-counting all votes.

The order doesn’t specify which countries have meddled in our elections. But Trump has targeted China in the past, and is currently accusing Iran, complaining in a 1:35 a.m. Truth Social rant on Feb. 28 that Iran interfered in the “2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with United States.” This serves the dual purpose of adding another justification for the war and, as election lawyer Marc Elias has noted, another rationale for Trump’s midterm power grab.

Like the executive order on voting rights Trump issued in March 2025, the new proposed order should be overturned by the courts, but only after costly and protracted litigation. Under Article I of the Constitution, the states determine the “times, places and manner of holding elections.” Congress can pass legislation to regulate state voting procedures, but the president has no independent authority to do so.

Still, there is considerable peril ahead. No court rulings can prevent red states from voluntarily complying with Trump’s demands and affecting down-ballot races that might favor Democrats. Thus far, at least 10 states, including Texas, have handed over their full voter files to the Department of Justice, and the DOJ has sued more than 20 states that have refused to do the same. Even worse, on Jan. 28., the FBI seized voting records from an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, after Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger rebuffed the administration’s records request. The specter of similar raids in noncomplying states looms as the midterms approach.

The SAVE Act and its successors

Realizing the limitations of unilateral executive action, Trump loyalists have introduced legislation to accomplish what his executive orders cannot.

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act passed in the House on April 10 and is pending before the Senate. If enacted, it would require all Americans to provide a birth certificate, passport or some other documentary proof of citizenship in person every time they register or reregister to vote, and require each state to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote and to remove noncitizens from their voter lists. It would also create a private right of action, after the fashion of the Texas antiabortion law, to allow disgruntled individuals to sue election officials who register voters without obtaining proof of citizenship and establish criminal penalties of up to five years in prison for election officials who violate the act.

Fortunately, the act has stalled in the Senate, blocked at least temporarily by the filibuster rule that requires a 60-vote majority to advance legislation. However, two new bills — an amended version of the SAVE Act and the Make Elections Great Again Act — have been introduced in the House with strong backing from Trump, who claimed in his recent State of the Union address that “cheating [by Democrats in elections] is rampant.” Should any of the bills reach the Resolute Desk, the courts will be hard-pressed to block them, although legal challenges will no doubt be filed. And in yet another Truth Social rant posted in the early hours of March 8, Trump threatened not to sign any legislation until the act passes the Senate.

Mid-decade gerrymandering

Every 10 years, after the census, the Constitution requires the states to redraw the boundaries of their congressional districts to reflect population changes in a process known as reapportionment, or redistricting. If done fairly, the process provides equal representation for all voters regardless of race, gender or party affiliation, guided by the ideal of “one person, one vote.”

Sadly, the process is deeply flawed and often yields to gerrymandering. A portmanteau coined after the salamander-like image that resulted on a map of the voting districts created by Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry in 1812, gerrymandering today refers to the abusive practice of drawing electoral boundaries to give an advantage to a dominant party, group or socioeconomic class.

Until now, states have typically redistricted only once per decade. But last July, under intense pressure from Trump, Texas broke the norm, drafting a new congressional map designed to give the GOP five additional House seats. Since then, other states have followed suit, touching off a mid-decade gerrymandering war that has spread to California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Florida, and soon to other states. On balance, the math slightly favors the Republicans. But the war could easily backfire as a new blue wave appears to be building, and more voters, even in red states, come to realize they have been duped by the con man from Queens.

Deploying ICE at the polls

In a Feb. 3 podcast, former White House strategist Steve Bannon called on Trump to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to polling sites to prevent noncitizens from voting. Echoing the president’s own oft-repeated conspiracy theory, Bannon said:

“We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.”

Asked about Bannon’s comments two days later, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “I can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November … but what I can tell you is I haven’t heard the president discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations.”

Leavitt’s remarks were anything but reassuring for an administration that thrives on deceit. It is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison to deploy federal troops or armed federal law enforcement to any polling place. It would not be illegal, however, for ICE to deploy to blue state cities on Election Day in the general vicinity of polling places with the goal of intimidating newly naturalized citizens from voting. In fact, it would be astonishing if ICE stayed home.

Jan. 3, 2027

If all other tactics and any lawsuits the GOP launches fail, Trump and his most diehard adherents will have one last opportunity to stop the Democrats from taking over the House and possibly the Senate on Jan. 3, 2027, when the next Congress is sworn in.

The 20th Amendment mandates that every new Congress convene at noon on Jan. 3. The first session of each chamber is supposed to be purely ceremonial in nature, just like the joint session of Congress that convenes on Jan. 6 to count Electoral College ballots after a presidential election. But as we saw on Jan. 6, 2021, ceremony can quickly give way to chaos, and even outright insurrection. This is especially true when given a patina of legality, as the 2020 election deniers concocted the theory that Vice President Mike Pence had the discretion to reject swing-state electoral votes cast in favor of Joe Biden.

If anything, there is even more opportunity for disruption and potential chaos on Jan. 3. Each chamber has its own rules for the swearing-in process. In the House, the members-elect vote to select a new speaker, who is sworn into office by the dean of the House — the most senior (longest-serving) member, regardless of party. Once sworn in, the new speaker administers the oath to the members-elect.

But what happens if the dean refuses to swear in a new speaker, alleging election fraud? The current dean of the House is Kentucky Republican Hal Rogers, an election denier who voted against the certification of the 2020 election. If Trump demands, would Rogers delay or decline to swear in a Democratic speaker? Would he defy the president?

In the Senate, each newly elected member is sworn in by the vice president of the United States, who serves as president of the Senate. What happens if JD Vance, following instructions from his boss, refuses to swear in a critical number of Democrats?

Each chamber has procedures for resolving election disputes, but they are rarely invoked, and it remains to be seen how Trump would exploit them.

There is nothing more dangerous than an autocrat afraid of losing power, and there is no autocrat on the world stage today more fearful and paranoid than Donald Trump. He is prepared to do anything he can to stave off defeat, but his age and incompetence have finally caught up with him, and his aura of invincibility has been pierced. The American people, on the other hand, are waking up and rejecting the neo-fascist horrors their president is offering them and their children. In the end, they will see to it that the plot to rig the midterms and end democracy fails.

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