Because of how Trump reacted and tried to overturn the 2020 election that he lost after the fact, some Americans have made the assumption that the president will approach the 2026 midterm election the same way.
2026 isn’t 2020, and Trump has learned a great deal about how to misuse his power to try to rig an election over the last five-plus years. This time, the president is trying to preemptively rig the election in his favor before a single vote is cast.
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The gerrymandering war that Republicans launched was all about rigging the House map, so that even if voters showed up to reject Trump and his party, Republicans would still maintain power. Democrats fought back enough that Republicans were not able to get the gains needed to make their majority election-proof, so that effort failed.
Republicans in red states have used their usual tactics of voter purges and closing down polling places in Democratic districts and areas, but these are tactics that Republicans have been using for decades in red states, and they aren’t a surprise to voters in those areas or voting rights advocates.
The new wrinkle is Trump’s attack on mail-in ballots, which poses a serious threat, but each day that his USPS rules remain blocked by an injunction is another day closer to those rules not being implemented for the midterms.
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Rasin (D-MD) appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press, where he made it clear that the threat to the midterm election is already happening.
