https://apnews.com/article/election-2026-trump-voting-doj-interference-22e2313f98e354fa31f277d3a1dc67d3If history is a guide, Republicans stand a good chance of losing control of the House of Representatives in 2026. They have just a slim majority in the chamber, and the incumbent party usually gives up seats in midterm elections.President Donald Trump, whose loss of the House halfway through his first term led to two impeachments, is trying to keep history from repeating — and doing so in ways his opponents say are intended to manipulate next year’s election landscape.He has rallied his party to remake congressional maps across the country to create more conservative-leaning House seats, an effort that could end up backfiring on him. He’s directed his administration to target Democratic politicians, activists and donors. And, Democrats worry, he’s flexing his muscles to intervene in the midterms like no administration ever has.Democrats and other critics point to how Trump has sent the military into Democratic cities over the objections of Democratic mayors and governors. They note that he’s pushed the Department of Homeland Security to be so aggressive that at one point its agents handcuffed a Democratic U.S. senator. And some warn that a Republican-controlled Congress could fail to seat winning candidates if Democrats reclaim the House majority, recalling Trump’s efforts to stay in power even after voters rejected him in 2020, leading to the violent attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.Regarding potential military deployments, Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told The Associated Press: “What he is going to do is send those troops there, and keep them there all the way through the next election, because guess what? If people are afraid of leaving their house, they’re probably not going to leave their house to go vote on Election Day. That’s how he stays in power.”
Military to the polls, or fearmongering?Democrats sounded similar alarms just before November’s elections, and yet there were no significant incidents. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a frequent Trump antagonist who also warns about a federal crackdown on voting in 2026, predicted that masked immigration agents would show up at the polls in his state, where voters were considering a ballot measure to counter Trump’s redistricting push.There were no such incidents in November, and the measure to redraw California’s congressional lines in response to Trump’s efforts elsewhere won in a landslide.White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the concerns about the midterms come from Democratic politicians who are “fearmongering to score political points with the radical left flank of the Democrat party that they are courting ahead of their doomed-to-fail presidential campaigns.”She described their concerns as “baseless conspiracy theories.”Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, denied that Trump was planning to use the military to try to suppress votes.“I say it is categorically false, will not happen. It’s just wrongheaded,” she told Vanity Fair for an interview that was published earlier in December.DNC litigation director Dan Freeman said he hasn’t seen an indication that Trump will send immigration enforcement agents to polling places during the midterms, but is wary.He said the DNC filed public records requests in an attempt to learn more about any such plans and is drafting legal pleadings it could file if Trump sends armed federal agents to the polls or otherwise intervenes in the elections.“We’re not taking their word for it,” Freeman said in an interview.
States, not presidents, run electionsNovember’s off-year elections may not be the best indicator of what could lie ahead. They were scattered in a handful of states, and Trump showed only modest interest until late in the fall when his Department of Justice announced it was sending federal monitors to California and New Jersey to observe voting in a handful of counties. It was a bureaucratic step that had no impact on voting, even as it triggered alarm from Democrats.Alexandra Chandler, the legal director of Protect Democracy, a group that has clashed with Trump over his role in elections, said she was heartened by the lack of drama during the 2025 voting.“We have so many positive signs we can look to,” Chandler said, citing not only a quiet election but GOP senators’ resistance to Trump’s demands to eliminate the filibuster and the widespread resistance to Trump’s demand that television host Jimmy Kimmel lose his job because of his criticism of the president. “There are limits” on Trump’s power, she noted.“We will have elections in 2026,” Chandler said. “People don’t have to worry about that.”Under the Constitution, a president has limited tools to intervene in elections, which are run by the states. Congress can help set rules for federal elections, but states administer their own election operations and oversee the counting of ballots.When Trump tried to singlehandedly revise election rules with a sweeping executive order shortly after returning to office, the courts stepped in and stopped him, citing the lack of a constitutional role for the president. Trump later promised another order, possibly targeting mail ballots and voting machines, but it has yet to materialize.
DOJ voter data request ‘should frighten everybody’Still, there’s plenty of ways a president can cause problems, said Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor.Trump unsuccessfully pushed Georgia’s top election official to “find” him enough votes to be declared the winner there in 2020 and could try similar tactics in Republican-dominated states in November. Likewise, Hasen said, Trump could spread misinformation to undermine confidence in vote tallies, as he has done routinely ahead of elections.It’s harder to do that in more lopsided contests, as many in 2025 turned into, Hasen noted.“Concerns about Trump interfering in 2026 are real; they’re not frivolous,” Hasen said. “They’re also not likely, but these are things people need to be on guard for.”One administration move that has alarmed election officials is a federal demand from his Department of Justice for detailed voter data from the states. The administration has sued the District of Columbia and at least 21 states, most of them controlled by Democrats, after they refused to turn over all the information the DOJ sought.“What the DOJ is trying to do is something that should frighten everybody across the political spectrum,” said David Becker, a former Justice Department voting rights attorney and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “They’re trying to use the power of the executive to bully states into turning over highly sensitive data — date of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license, the Holy Trinity of identity theft — hand it over to the DOJ for who knows what use.”
‘Voter protection’ vs ‘election integrity’Voting rights lawyers and election officials have been preparing for months for the midterms, trying to ensure there are ways to counter misinformation and ensure state election systems are easy to explain. Both major parties are expected to stand up significant campaigns around the mechanics of voting: Democrats mounting what they call a “voter protection” effort to monitor for problems while Republicans focus on what they call “election integrity.”Freeman, the DNC litigation director who previously worked in the DOJ’s voting section, said his hiring this year was part of a larger effort by the DNC to beef up its in-house legal efforts ahead of the midterms. He said the committee has been filling gaps in voting rights law enforcement that the DOJ has typically covered, including informing states that they can’t illegally purge citizens from their voter rolls.Tina Barton, co-chair of the Committee on Safe and Secure Elections, a coalition of law enforcement and election officials who advise jurisdictions on de-escalation and how to respond to emergencies at polling places, says interest in the group’s trainings has “exploded” in recent weeks.“There’s a lot at stake, and that’s going to cause a lot of emotions,” Barton said.
It's over.
why dont they just make it so that the candidate with the most votes win the election (:
>>1470182>Miami>IndianaOh, in a time just after less than nine hours from now, someone has something to be worried about: and it's not the Democrats, MAGAtsAffordability will be one of the factors that the Democrats will have less to worry about in the coming midterms.
>>1470197Imagine a nation of 50 states and the politicians only cared about five of them
>>1470219Sounds like a democracy
>>1470182Mike Johnson can just decide not to seat new Dems. It's a hack that I am surprised nobody else has tried. It's not legal, but who really gives a shit. Just say that they won the seats illegally and that you're launching an investigation.But who knows what will happen. A year is a long fucking time in modern politics.
>>1470219Don't live in a dead red state then?
>>1470259The same dead red states that leftists keep moving to escape the consequences of their voting habits in blue states like California, New York, Illinois, etc. etc.
>>1470262esl
>>1470262>leftistGood evening Ivan
>Free to move where ever you want because your vote will have the same weight regardless of the state you're in.What's the problem?
>>1470263>>1470275Liggerals seething over their failures at governance in this thread.You need to re-up your bans?
>>1470299right wing can't meme, again.
>>1470182Americans on both sides really have no idea what fascism is.
Projecting miggers seething over their failures at governance in this thread.You need to re-up your bans?
>>1470310IDK, Conservatives setting up concentration camps for migrates is very fascist.
>>1470182>Democrats are still crying about their fake election rigging hoaxwhy don't these conspiracy theorists ever give up?>>1470197why doesn't 4chan just make it so that only Americans can comment on American politics?>>1470263Fuck off, we've already proven in other threads that the "ESL" posting is pure projection, and if you're this anon >>1470214 then you are not even American and know so little about American politics that you don't even know what the midterms are.
>>1470381all you've proven is you're esl and whiny to boot
The ESL foreigner 1470381 that isn't American can't give up projecting.
>>1470325>deporting foreign invaders is fascismInvite 20 homeless people to sleep in your apartment. If you say no then you're a fascist.
>>1470389if only we could deport you from the internet esl shill
>rightards thinking that deportations aren't fascistInvite 20 homeless people into your apartment, shill. If you say no then you're a hypocrite. and a subhuman rightard
>>1470389>Ignoring the concentration camp partTypical
>>1470414Don't want to be put in a camp? Don't be in the country illegally. Pretty simple really
>>1470418>It's okay to be a fascist when...Gotcha
>>1470419>fascism is when laws existWe get it; you're gay and retarded
>>1470422>Concentration camps are fine when we do itNot shaking off the fascist label
>>1470437Don't care. Get deported fag lmao
>>1470437>wehe's not even american
>>1470437You love it.
>>1470440>>1470444Not even sending the best
>>1470182how can you steal an election, they said it was the most secure in 2020... so it should be even more secure nowffs, the fear mongering is tiresome
funny how when republicans say biden stole the election omg its a conspiracy theory even though that 5million votes or whatever suddenly disappeared in 2024, funny bout thatbut now omg trump is stealing the election oh no he doing evil orange magic.yeah stay inconsistant and fuck off leftist scum.god the hypocrisy
>>1470517You see the election in 2016 was stolen by the RussiansThe election in 2020 was the most secure in american historyThe election in 2024 was stolen by Israelis.Any questions?
>>1470530are you going to stop being so butthurt anytime soon?
