Donald Trump has made it clear that he would like to cancel the midterm elections. He wished he had seized ballot boxes after he lost the 2020 presidential election. He has made clear that he would like the Department of Justice to operate as an extension of his political will. He said we should cancel the midterms. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
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February 3, 2026
Donald Trump has made it clear that he would like to cancel the midterm elections. He wished he had seized ballot boxes after he lost the 2020 presidential election. He has made clear that he would like the Department of Justice to operate as an extension of his political will. He said we should cancel the midterms.
Yesterday, Trump raised the threat to the 2026 midterm elections to an entirely new level. Speaking to former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino on his podcast, Trump revealed a new wrinkle in his plan: He wants Republicans to take over ([link removed] ) voting in Democratic-run states and cities.
“These people were brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally. And you know, it’s amazing that the Republicans aren’t tougher on it. The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over.’ We should take over the voting — the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
We need to listen carefully and listen closely. Trump is telegraphing his playbook to steal the 2026 elections. Here’s how he will do it:
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First, he will falsely claim that there is widespread illegal voting. He will merge his demonization of immigrants with his long-standing election denialism.
Next, he will use the pretext of noncitizen voting to execute a partisan takeover of voting rules and election administration in swing districts with high concentrations of Democratic voters. He may even use federal paramilitary forces already at his disposal to block voting access. Finally, he will use the Department of Justice to seize ballots and take over vote counting.
As I previously wrote ([link removed] ) , the recent raid to seize ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, was in part a dry run to work out the logistics of how this could happen in the future. With a handpicked prosecutor in place and the public now accustomed to ballot seizures, Trump has set the stage for 2026.
If this targeted approach does not guarantee a Republican majority in Congress, he will go even further toward a complete federal takeover, or what Trump calls “Republicans … nationalizing the voting.”
Some have focused only on that last phrase to suggest that Trump is simply restating his desire for federal legislation. Such an interpretation is either hopelessly naïve or made in bad faith. Congressional legislation does not constitute a “takeover” of voting. It would not be purely partisan. Most importantly, it would not apply only to “15 places.”
If there was any doubt about what Trump meant, it was put to rest earlier today when avowed election denier and House Speaker Mike Johnson added fuel to the fire. He told ([link removed] ) a reporter, “We had three House Republican candidates who were ahead on Election Day in the last election cycle, and every time a new tranche of ballots came in they just magically whittled away until their leads were lost… It looks on its face to be fraudulent. Can I prove that? No.”
Recall that as a backbencher in 2020, Johnson was Trump’s loyal foot soldier in trying to rally ([link removed] ) Republicans to overturn the results of the presidential election. And on the night of Jan. 6, 2021, he voted to oppose certifying the election for President Joe Biden.
Now, with the power and influence of the speaker’s podium behind him, Johnson is backing Trump’s attacks on “blue states.” Even worse, he is peddling conspiracies about “magically” appearing ballots in House races and vote counting that “looks on its face fraudulent.”
It is time we wake up and take Trump’s threats seriously and literally. Based on past behavior, if anything, what he said is almost certainly an understatement of how far he is actually willing to go.
After the 2020 election, we were assured that Trump would accept the outcome. After he and his allies lost more than 60 cases in court, we were told he just needed time to grieve. Then came the violence of Jan. 6, 2021.
Since then, his rhetoric has grown increasingly strident and his behavior more extreme and erratic. As his popularity drops and the reality sets in that Republicans may be swept from power this fall, he is likely to become even more dangerous.
His effort to rig elections may have started with extreme mid-cycle redistricting, but when those efforts largely failed to deliver the advantage he hoped for, he shifted toward taking over voting itself.
In August, he explained his theory in stark detail. He said he would ban mail-in voting and decertify voting equipment he did not like. With fewer ways to vote, he expects the electorate to skew more Republican.
If that fails, he laid out a backup plan: taking over vote counting and ballot tabulation from the states. “The States,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, “are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them … to do.”
As a matter of constitutional law, this is flat-out wrong. But Trump is not interested in following the Constitution. As we have seen before, he prefers to act by force.
So, when Trump tells Dan Bongino that he wants Republicans to take over voting in selected states or cities, we shouldn’t assume he’s bluffing. We need to believe him. And when the speaker of the House goes along with Trump’s lies, we need to realize that it’s up to us to defend free and fair elections and the rule of law.
That means states and localities must harden their election processes and reform their laws to resist illegal federal takeovers. Lawyers must be aggressive in protecting voters’ rights to cast ballots, have them accurately counted, and included in certified results.
Most importantly, all of us — as citizens who care about our democracy — must organize in our communities. We must educate friends, family and neighbors about the challenges we face. We must ensure that they are informed and invested in their right to vote so they can go to the polls in 2026 with the power and knowledge to confidently use their voice.
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