Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Democrats have assembled teams of senators and lawyers to counter any effort by President Donald Trump to interfere with the 2026 midterm elections. In a 20-minute telephone interview with the Associated Press, Schumer said cost of living was the dominant concern for American families and outlined a five-issue economic platform the party plans to run on through November.
Schumer’s comments opened the midterm year with Democrats projecting confidence that voter discontent over economic conditions — compounded by what the minority leader called the administration’s “costs, corruption and chaos” — was already moving the political landscape in his party’s favor.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Democrats have already assembled teams of senators and lawyers to monitor election procedures and counter any effort by President Donald Trump to disrupt or dispute the outcome of the November midterm elections.
“We share them, and we already have teams of both senators and lawyers looking at every way that Trump could try to screw things up, and we’re fighting against it,” Schumer said in a 20-minute telephone interview with the Associated Press, responding to whether Democrats expected a replay of the post-election disputes that followed the 2024 cycle. “We already have a team to make sure that they count the votes fairly.”
Schumer added: “Trump will do whatever it takes, and he has no honor and no credibility and no respect for law. But, we are prepared for it, and we believe we will succeed.”
The White House has called such Democratic statements “fearmongering” to score political points.
Economic platform
Schumer said affordability would be the dominant frame of the Democratic campaign, listing five issue areas the party intends to press. “We are going to focus on five issues in terms of lowering people’s costs. They are health care, housing, tariffs — you know, costs of goods — food prices, because of food monopolies, and child care,” he said.
He pointed to several administration policies he said were compounding economic pressure on families: the failure to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits, the rollback of clean energy incentives, and tariffs that he said were raising the price of consumer goods. “People now realize that Trump is hurting them,” Schumer said.
“The costs is the number one issue. The cost of living, affordability, call it what you will. But it’s the number one issue,” he said.
Senate map
Schumer said the party’s path to recapturing the Senate majority was wider than many outside analysts credited. He cited former Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola’s entry into the Senate race as expanding the map.
“I say it is a much wider path than the skeptics think, and a much wider path than it was three months ago and certainly a year ago,” Schumer said. “And it keeps getting better and better, and we think we have a really good chance of winning back the Senate.”
He pointed to 2025 gubernatorial results as early validation: Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the Virginia governor’s race by 15 points, and Democrat Mikie Sherrill won in New Jersey by 13 points. Schumer said Democrats also recorded wins in Georgia and other states during that cycle, and attributed the margins to voters across age and income lines concluding that the administration was not serving their economic interests.
ICE raids
Schumer said Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in major cities were adding a political dimension beyond the economic argument. “People don’t like chaos,” he said, describing cities and mayors he called “perfectly calm and safe” before the raids began.
He framed immigration enforcement as part of a broader disorder narrative the party would carry into the campaign alongside cost concerns. “It’s costs, corruption and chaos,” Schumer said. “The people don’t like it.”