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Democrats and election law experts are renewing concerns that President Donald Trump could interfere with the 2026 midterm elections, even as a recent cycle of off-year voting passed without major incidents. The worries center on what critics say is a pattern of using federal power to pressure or deter Democratic voters, as well as on broader fears about misinformation, ballot access, and confidence in vote counts.
The renewed alarm gained momentum after Democrats said Trump has moved to remake congressional maps to produce more conservative-leaning House seats ahead of the next election. Critics also said he has directed his administration to target Democratic politicians, activists and donors, warning that such steps could shift the electoral landscape in ways they say resemble election interference.
Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told The Associated Press that he expects the administration to use military deployment as a lever around the election itself. “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,” Martin said.
Democrats’ warnings cite past disputes over how federal forces were used during periods of unrest. They pointed to claims that Trump sent the military into Democratic cities over the objections of Democratic mayors and governors, and they described concerns about aggressive Department of Homeland Security actions, including that agents at one point handcuffed a Democratic U.S. senator. Some critics also warned that a Republican-controlled Congress could refuse to seat winning candidates if Democrats regain the House, recalling efforts during Trump’s first term to challenge outcomes after 2020.
Trump’s administration denied the allegation that it plans to use the military to affect voting. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the concerns about the midterms come from Democrats 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,” and she described the concerns as “baseless conspiracy theories.” Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, denied that Trump was planning to use the military to suppress votes, saying, “I say it is categorically false, will not happen. It’s just wrongheaded,” in an interview with Vanity Fair published earlier in December.
Some Democrats also have pointed to the way warnings can evolve from one election cycle to the next. Ahead of November’s off-year elections, California Gov. Gavin Newsom predicted masked immigration agents would show up at polls in his state, where voters were considering a ballot measure to counter Trump’s redistricting efforts, but no such incidents occurred and the measure to redraw California’s congressional lines passed “in a landslide,” according to the report.
Others argue that off-year elections may not offer the clearest preview of what could happen in 2026. Still, Protect Democracy’s legal director, Alexandra Chandler, said she was “heartened by the lack of drama” in the 2025 voting, and she pointed to resistance within the Senate to Trump’s demands to eliminate the filibuster. Chandler said limits exist on Trump’s power and added that, under the Constitution, presidents have limited tools to intervene in elections because the states run election operations and oversee ballot counting.
Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor, said there are still “plenty of ways a president can cause problems,” while acknowledging that tactics may be harder in states where contests are less competitive. He said Trump unsuccessfully pushed Georgia’s top election official in 2020 to “find” him enough votes to win, and Hasen said Trump could seek similar tactics in Republican-dominated states. Hasen also warned that misinformation campaigns could undermine confidence in tallies, saying, “Concerns about Trump interfering in 2026 are real; they’re not frivolous,” while adding that they are “also not likely.”
One move that has alarmed election officials is the Department of Justice’s demand for detailed voter data from states. David Becker, a former Justice Department voting rights attorney and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said, “What the DOJ is trying to do is something that should frighten everybody across the political spectrum,” arguing that the government is trying to use executive power to pressure states into turning over highly sensitive data, including date of birth, Social Security numbers and driver’s license information.
At the same time, Democrats’ election-year preparations have focused on monitoring and legal response. Voting rights lawyers and election officials have been preparing for months for the midterms, aiming to counter misinformation and ensure state election systems are easy to explain. Dan Freeman said the DNC has not seen an indication that Trump will send immigration enforcement agents to polling places, but he said he is wary and that the DNC has sought more information through public records requests while drafting potential legal filings if federal agents are sent to polling sites or if the administration otherwise intervenes.
Beyond the political dispute over what “interference” means, election security planning also includes training and coordination among officials. Tina Barton, co-chair of the Committee on Safe and Secure Elections, which includes law enforcement and election officials who advise jurisdictions on de-escalation, said interest in the group’s trainings has “exploded” in recent weeks, adding that “there’s a lot at stake, and that’s going to cause a lot of emotions.”