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2026 Midterm Election

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MMA

MAGA media looks for a scapegoat

Former Fox contributor says that the Fox News era of the Republican party is probably over

Written by Jason Campbell

Published 11/06/26

Welcome back to Media Matters’ weekly newsletter. This week:

The midterms were a striking rebuke to Fox News.

As right-wing media figures look for a scapegoat after the midterms, some say JD Vance shouldn’t run for president. In fact, the Iran hawks have coalesced around a specific narrative: The war was great until Vance ruined it.

The 49 right-wing media figures claiming to have Trump’s ear.

If you want this delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe here.

How right-wing media is responding to this week’s elections

Tim Pool: “This is the end of the Trump era.”

Ben Shapiro: “This midterm election was a repudiation of President Trump, period. End of story.”

MAGA “prophet” Julie Green: “There was a red wave last night. It was stolen.”

Fox’s Ainsley Earhardt: “Don’t be discouraged, because this is normal.”

A Fox guest called for White House chief of staff Susie Wiles to resign, along with “anybody involved in what was 100 percent a preventable election wipeout.”

John Solomon said the Fox News era of the Republican party is probably over.

Newsmax's Greg Kelly also lashed out at Fox News: “No wonder why they don't give a damn, they're set for life over there.”

The midterm results are a crushing rebuke to Fox News’ Trump propaganda

Citation

Andrea Austria / Media Matters

The massive bet Fox News made on President Donald Trump’s political success turned to ash on Tuesday night. The right-wing network's executives and stars clearly calculated that if they showered Trump with praise, propagandized for his administration, and shielded their viewers from its scandals, both the network and the political party it exists to promote would reap the rewards. The midterm election results this week, however, were a historic rebuke to Fox’s effort.

The elections were a resounding defeat for Trump and the Republican Party. For Fox’s troubles, the network received a significant drop in viewership leading up to Election Day — one apparently triggered by disaffected Republicans changing the channel. On the night of the election, Trump attacked the network and called in to lash at Fox for being insufficiently supportive.

Media Matters’ Matt Gertz writes: “Fox traditionally molds itself in the image of the leading elements of the GOP, and its influence historically waxes when that party is out of power. But with Trump, his MAGA movement, and the Republican Party discredited at the ballot box, the network’s stars will be crawling out of a very deep hole that they dug themselves into.”

Excuse me?

Nearly a quarter of episodes of Tucker Carlson’s online show feature claims about demons, alleged occult activity, and/or the supernatural, including discussions of “ritual killing” and people suffering from “demonic possession” — at least 644 times. Supernatural themes have increased dramatically on Carlson’s show as the former Fox primetime host has reinvented himself as an independent power center on the right, vowing to “help build a third party,” releasing his 10-point vision for America, and fueling speculation about a potential third-party run.

A Media Matters analysis found that in the months leading up to this week’s election, progressive Twitch streamer Hasan Piker was mentioned on Fox News more than Republican Senate candidates Ken Paxton, Dan Sullivan, Susan Collins, Darline Graham, Michele Tafoya, Jon Husted, Roger Marshall, Ashley Hinson, John Sununu, Pete Ricketts, and Cindy Hyde-Smith.

Tim Pool: “Repeal the Seventh Amendment outright."

Ahead of the midterm elections, the bros of the podcast world largely abandoned Trump and his allies. In fact, 9 of the leading “bro-casts” that interviewed Trump or Vice President JD Vance during the 2024 election have not hosted the president at all in 2026 (Vance appeared only once). The 9 shows also barely mentioned Trump ahead of the midterms.

A Fox News legal editor said there are “legitimate questions” about “Trump’s family members and those close to him getting disproportionately wealthier as Americans feel like they are getting poorer.” Meanwhile, others at Fox are rallying to the defense of the Trump family.

Some right-wing media figures say midterm losses are a death knell for a JD Vance 2028 run

Citation

Media Matters / Andrea Austria

After the Republicans suffered major electoral losses this week, some in right-wing media are questioning whether Vice President JD Vance could or even should secure the party’s nomination in 2028. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro, for example, said Vance’s candidacy would be a “rough road,” and conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg said Vance was “the biggest single loser last night.”

Right-wing media commentators more generally are looking for a scapegoat to blame for the party’s losses. Some figures have doubled down on long-standing feuds by blaming their media contemporaries for the losses (One America News host Dan Ball, for example, blamed Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Rogan), while others are pointing to “weak-ass Republicans" who “have not campaigned on anything.” As Trump’s grip on the Republican Party seems to be weakened, some media figures are even blaming him directly, highlighting his “unpopular and pointless war” and the fact that “everybody’s paying out the nose for rent and groceries and gas."

Right-wing media hawks are responding to Vice President JD Vance’s craven attempt to scapegoat the Iran war as the primary cause of the GOP’s midterms collapse by trying to rehabilitate the war as a huge success, blame Vance’s role in diplomatic efforts for its unpopularity, and block his potential ascent to the Republican presidential nomination in 2028. Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade castigated Vance on Thursday for trying “to distance himself in a sensationalistic way from the president one day after the midterms” before declaring the vice president “the person who did the most damage to the war effort.”

Media Matters President Angelo Carusone argued that the post-midterm right-wing media blame game is actually a succession fight.

As the fallout from the midterm elections continue, we’ll keep you posted on where right-wing media are putting the blame.

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AN 11 26

Republicans lost the Cheesecake Factory vote — by a lot

POD SAVE RALLY DROP 5 PTS

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AN 11 26

Speaking exclusively with AlterNet, one of America's top election and polling experts explained on Thursday why the 2026 midterm elections didn't end with another coup attempt.

President Donald Trump attempted to rig the 2026 midterm elections before Election Day through many methods. These included attempts at restricting mail-in voting, sending law enforcement to the polls, trying to force states to purge voters from their rolls and threatening to file frivolous lawsuits.

After Election Day, however, Trump accepted the Democrats' sweeping takeover of the Senate and House of Representatives. He didn't declare a national emergency to seize ballots or stop the voting. There was no Big Lie claiming without evidence that the election was stolen, such as the one Trump spread after losing the 2020 presidential election. Instead he did exactly what all candidates are supposed to do in a democracy — graciously accept the election results, at least in public.

So what happened?

"This was such a thumping that even he couldn't deny it with a straight face," Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor at Sabato's Crystal Ball (a top election prediction and analysis group that is centered at the University of Virginia), told AlterNet. He also pointed out that Trump could not stop Joe Biden from winning the 2020 election, even though he tried through illegitimate lawsuits and then the Jan. 6th insurrection.

"This is one of the biggest waves in American history," Kondik added, drawing a comparison between voter dissatisfaction with Republican corruption and inflation in two previous sets of midterm elections with the voters' verdict with the current Republican administration's corruption and inflation.

"The Watergate wave of 1974 might be the only comparable election in modern history," Kondik told AlterNet. "This was kind of like 2006, but clearly bigger." The 1974 midterms occurred under President Gerald Ford, who controversially pardoned his predecessor Richard Nixon after he resigned in disgrace for covering up a politically-motivated burglary (the so-called Watergate scandal). The 2006 midterms occurred under President George W. Bush, who was fighting scandal for misleading the public about why America invaded Iraq. Both also struggled with poor economies marked by high inflation.

After both the 1974 and 2006 midterm elections, Democrats capitalized on widespread dissatisfaction with the economy and scandals that they elected Democrats in the following presidential elections (Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008). Kondik indicated that the victorious party could do this again in 2028.

"When there's such a huge swing all sorts of voters move, but the biggest shifts back toward Democrats seemed to be among young people and Hispanics," Kondik told AlterNet.

He continued, "The giant wave only makes the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination more worth having, because Trump is weak and may never truly bounce back in approval. So Trump may drag down whoever the Republican nominee is. I think the fight for the Democratic nomination is wide open."

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AN 11 26 RR

Rather than regurgitate the particular wins and losses that occurred Tuesday, I thought it more useful, at this point, to look at the big picture and identify the largest overall winners and losers for the nation as a whole.

Biggest winner: A diverse, equitable, and inclusive America. It’s Trump’s DEI nightmare. Georgia voters elected Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first Black female governor in the nation. Texas chose Gina Hinojosa, the state’s first Latina governor and first Democratic governor in more than 30 years. California elected Xavier Becerra, the state’s first Latino governor. New Mexico chose Deb Haaland, the nation’s first female Native American governor. Florida elected Byron Donalds, the first Black governor in Florida’s history (a Republican).

For the U.S. Senate, New Hampshire chose Chris Pappas, that chamber’s first openly gay member. Minnesotans picked Peggy Flanagan, the first Native American woman elected to the Senate. Michiganders chose Abdul El-Sayed, the first Muslim elected to the Senate.

These are remarkable wins. Some are attributable to a surge in voting by Black people, many of whom were understandably incensed at efforts to push Black representatives out of Congress through overt racial gerrymandering. And by Latinos, enraged at ICE’s wanton arrests and detentions. Women upset by Republican efforts to outlaw abortion in their states. And LGBTQ+ people, angry about the blatant bigotry of Trump and his Republican enablers.

But many straight white men and women also disagree with Trump’s narrow definition of America. It turns out that the nation is far more diverse, equitable, and inclusive than Trump or his Republican enablers want (or believe) it to be. Trump and his enablers tried to make us fear and hate one another over our many differences. They indubitably failed.

Another winner: The new South. For as long as anyone can remember, the states that comprised the Old Confederacy have been regressive, conservative, intolerant, and, at least since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Republican.

No longer. On Tuesday, three of the four most populous Southern states (Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia) voted for Democrats up and down their tickets. Texas Democrats carried every statewide office from governor through lieutenant governor, attorney general, and even railroad commissioner. North Carolina and Georgia Democrats also scored stunning victories.

The biggest surprise was Annie Andrews’s win over Darline Graham in South Carolina’s Senate contest. As I write this, another possible gobsmacker: Black Democrat Scott Colom may actually win the Mississippi Senate seat held by Cindy Hyde-Smith.

Even Democratic losers in the South came remarkably close to winning: Democratic Senate candidate Jamie Davis was within a hair’s breadth of victory in Louisiana. Florida’s Angie Nixon almost snatched the Senate seat there.

What accounts for this new South? Partly a large and growing professional class (in metro Atlanta, North Carolina’s “research triangle,” and Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Austin) combined with an increasing flow of young workers and their families from other states, seeking more affordable housing. Add to this, an abundance of Latino and Asian immigrants. All told, the new South is more tolerant than the old. Much of it is also more sophisticated and more educated.

A third winner: Decency. During the run-up to the 2026 midterms, American voters were inundated with Republican attack ads, inflamed rhetoric, and personal smears against Democratic rivals. Those efforts backfired. Americans soundly rejected the politics of hate and fear, and embraced common decency.

Trump, JD Vance, and RFK Jr. did their worst to fuel Islamophobia against Michigan’s Dr. El-Sayed. Trump claimed if El-Sayed won, he’d “invite hordes of jihadis to our shores.” RFK Jr. baselessly linked El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood. Their fear-mongering obviously didn’t work.

Vance suggested that Texas Democratic Senatorial candidate James Talarico is gay. Another backfire.

Ohioans were so turned off by Trump-endorsed billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy’s attack ad against his Democratic opponent Dr. Amy Acton — using Acton’s mother whom Acton hadn’t seen since she was 12, when her father was accused of raping her — that the ad may have helped fuel Acton’s win, the first Democrat to win Ohio’s governorship since 2006. (Trump thought the ad just fine, and Vance even blasted fellow Republicans who spoke out against the ad, calling their criticism “disgusting” and telling them to “stop whining” because “politics is a tough business.”)

Since Trump came on the scene, many Republicans have eagerly imitated Trump’s scurrilous character assaults. Such smears have become so common that we tend to forget that most Americans don’t particularly like this form of politics. They prefer Barack Obama’s tempered rhetoric and the late John McCain’s dignified and respectful way of disagreeing. Now, after the 2026 midterms, perhaps decency is back.

So who were the biggest losers? Besides Trump and his Republican sycophants, the biggest losers are the mega donors and super PACs that poured record amounts of money into failed Republican candidacies.

Top awards for strategic stupidity go to the crypto industry (which tried unsuccessfully to derail Democrat Sherrod Brown in Ohio); AIPAC (which did everything it could to block El-Sayed and prevent any mention of Israel’s genocide in Gaza); the AI industry, which spent loads of cash trying but failing to allay voter’s concerns about data centers; and Elon Musk, who sought, single-handedly, to save Ken Paxton’s doomed Senate campaign in Texas.

Musk deserves his own special place in the loser’s circle. The richest person in the world became the poster child in the 2026 midterms for billionaire greed, legalized bribery, and corporate welfare. He sunk almost a half billion dollars into failed Republican campaigns, the most that any single human being has ever spent on elections — and for naught. After Tuesday’s blowout, shares in Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla dropped off a cliff.

Once they’re in control of Congress, Democrats will want to know what personal data and information Musk ran off with when he ran his ill-fated Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), under whose authority he throttled Ukraine’s access to his Starlink satellites, and why the U.S. government should continue to grant him an effective monopoly on satellites anyway rather than nationalize Starlink. To say Musk will be on the hot seat understates the temperature where he’ll be sitting.

In sum, considering the overall winners and losers from the 2026 midterms, I’d say America came out way ahead.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

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an 11 26

The two Republican blunders that radicalized the South and ended 50-year rule

John Stoehr November 04, 2026

Here are some takeaways from last night’s election.

First, the numbers. NBC News projects that the Democrats will take as many as 258 seats in the US House, 54 in the US Senate. Senate races in Alaska and Mississippi are still undecided. If Democrats prevail there, bring the Senate total to 56. Meanwhile, Democrats could flip as many as seven governorships, including Texas, making it 30 states that are under Democratic control. The penetration is deep, down to the local level. The state House in North Carolina flipped. So did the state House in Texas. Here in Connecticut, Democrats widened their already-wide margins in the legislature to a veto-proof majority. Across the country, every voter demographic moved left, the Times said, including the white working class, but especially youth. Men under 30 who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 moved away from him by 38 points. “Earthquake,” “wipeout,” “landslide” – all these terms apply.

How massive were the midterm results? Consider the history. The margin of victory in the House is greater than all previous midterms going back to 1976, the Times’ Peter Baker said. That was the election right after Watergate and Richard Nixon’s resignation. Baker said election results “will dwarf even the margins that the Republicans won in their two big landslide victories of modern times when they defeated congressional Democrats when Bill Clinton held the White House in 1994 and Barack Obama was president in 2010.”

The midterms mark the end of the Donald Trump era, but also suggest the beginning of a new age of possibilities. The Texas GOP appears to have broken apart under the weight of corruption and fealty to the president. James Talarico’s Senate victory was expected but few dared hope that Gina Hinojosa would sweep Republican Governor Greg Abbott out of power. All statewide offices in the Lone Star State flipped from red to blue. Even some state Supreme Court elections were lost. This does not bode well for any Republican with national ambitions, as no GOP nominee can win the White House without Texas’ 40 electoral votes.

The map has expanded – in the south. Democratic Senate candidates won in Texas and South Carolina. Mississippi’s Senate race is still being decided, but it looks good for Democrat Scott Colom. A Democrat came within an inch of winning Senate seats in Louisiana (Jamie Davis) and Florida (Angie Nixon). The region has long been neglected by the national party. The assumption has been that as long as the GOP dominates, there is no point. As the most racially diverse stretch of the country, however, some Democrats always saw the potential. “I have been telling my party now for a long time that it needs to invest in the south,” Raphael Warnock said today. “The road to a sustainable Democratic majority in the Congress goes right through the south." If there was hesitance to invest yesterday, there shouldn’t be today.

Hispanic voters and Black voters – they are why the south is suddenly competitive. The conventional wisdom is that affordability doomed Trump, but getting lost in the conversation is that Republicans turned the humanity of these Americans into a subject of national debate so their rights and freedoms were no longer guaranteed. ICE radicalized Hispanics. The Supreme Court, by gutting the Voting Rights Act, radicalized Blacks. The deal had been that the Republicans would control southern states in exchange for Hispanic and Black enfranchisement. That deal is what constituted the 21st-century version of “the Solid South.” ICE and SCOTUS broke it, however. The consequence Tuesday was both groups mobilizing to smash the Republican grip on power. They helped James Talarico in Texas and Annie Andrews in South Carolina. (Hispanic voters also supported Adam Hamilton in Kansas.)

Beware those who whitewash the Democrats. Pundits are already urging them to stay focused on affordability issues. Not only does that overlook the impact of the Republicans’ lawlessness on marginalized communities, it fails to take into account the vast complexity of Trump’s incompetence, venality and destruction. The Democrats do have a mandate – everything! For two years, Trump’s evil was everywhere. His high crimes were omni-directional. So there’s no reason for the Democrats to limit their vision to one direction only. In noting the trap some pundits are laying for Democrats, civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill said “this narrowing in the commentary is a way to make the Democrats fear acting on the full range of issues that matter.” She added that “we can do more than one thing at a time. People want an end to the madness, the excess, the lawlessness, and they want affordability.”

Democrats’ mandate messaging is mixed and that’s OK. Some are getting mad at Hakeem Jeffries for telling Joe Scarborough today that "the American people don't want us to get even; they want us to get things done on their behalf." He is right to say that given that Scarborough is a conservative talking head who does not want to see the Democrats flex their full power. However, later in the day, Jeffries also said that "I haven't had a single member of the House Democratic caucus talk to me about impeachment. We've been relentlessly focused on affordability and accountability ... [and] the type of dramatic change that the American people are clearly demanding.” If all this sounds like mixed messaging, that’s because it is, and that’s OK. Jeffries will lead a massive majority with differing priorities. Some will want to grind Trump to dust with relentless exposure. (Yesterday, Robert Garcia told administration officials to “lawyer up!) Others will want to focus on providing health care. Jeffries’ choice of language reflects this while leaving room to maneuver.

Finally, there’s Donald Trump. He seems to accept reality, for now. He said he would work with the Democrats. He conceded the war contributed to the landslide, though he refused to admit he had anything to do with it personally. “I wasn’t on the ticket,” he told the Times. At the same time, he said the war would continue and there's the rub. He may be constrained, but what does that matter to a demented narcissist with no future? The midterms were a repudiation. They mark the beginning of a transition, perhaps to a “sustainable Democratic majority in the Congress,” as Raphael Warnock said. But before the new era can rise in earnest, the old one must fully fall. As Douglas Sosnik, Bill Clinton’s political director, told the Times today: “I do think starting tomorrow, we’re in this new phase and it’s a transition phase and it will last two years. And it will be much more volatile than the last two years.”

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an 11 26 blame fire woman?

As Republicans search for someone to blame for the shellacking they received on election night, the knives are out at the White House for chief of staff Susie Wiles.

According to the Daily Beast, MAGA is calling for her to be gone.

“Susie Wiles should be fired tomorrow!” demanded white nationalist podcast host Nick Fuentes, ranting late Tuesday night. “You’re going to have a 260-seat Democrat majority in the House, a 55-seat Democrat majority, and these deputies for the White House were in Bosnia while this bloodbath was going on, making money from foreign governments.”

“[Wiles] should be fired immediately,” he continued. “Vance and Rubio should never get close to the nomination in 2028. That’s the point. That’s why we’re doing this. These people should be investigated. They should go to jail. They should lose their jobs. They should have no political future.”

" Trump should fire Susie Wiles, who most Republicans have an inexplicable affection for. Her role doesn't even need Senate confirmation. Trump needed a wartime consigliere and Wiles was Tom Hagen. Nice, practical, but not suited for these midterms and definitely not good for the next two years," said host JD Rucker.

While President Trump went into Election Day saying that he was confident and ready to stand up to Democrats, he now appears to be "eager" to make deals with Democrats. While Trump bragged that he was ready to get his veto stamp out, he now appears open to working together. The MAGA faithful said that Trump doesn't want to spend the next two years "vetoing everything."

However, Trump may be in deeper trouble than having to deal. He might be forced to spend the next two years begging Democrats not to hurt him.

Other MAGA supporters agree that Wiles is the one to blame and they're eager to throw her under the bus.

The Beast said that some claim that they have been against Wiles since her Dec. 2025 Vanity Fair cover. In the article, she promised: “We’re going to win the midterms.”

A Daily Mail report said Trump spent the evening shuttered in the White House residence while a crowd of Republicans patted themselves on the back and ate catering from the Cheesecake Factory.

"Ensconced with his redoutable Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Natalie Harp, the aide who has enjoyed unusually direct access to Trump throughout this second term, the President watched as the Blue Wave swept in. His First Lady was not watching with him," the Daily Mail said.

As the numbers came through and it became clear just how bad the night would be for Republicans, those who know Trump best quickly disappeared. First were his senior staff, followed by his Cabinet officials. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was there early in the evening, but the report said he suddenly couldn't be found.

As the clocks approached 10 p.m., everyone was almost completely gone, and the Cheesecake Factory food went uneaten.

After midnight, an angry Trump called into Fox News trying to blame them for all of the Fox polls that showed him with horrible polling. "But, tonight, actually, the results was pretty close to what the Fox polls showed," said Bret Baier.

"Well, I don't know about that," Trump said. "I can just tell ya about speaking for myself. And the results for Fox for me were wrong for 12 years. I mean, you got me wrong for 12 years. But I don't care. It doesn't matter. People... you know... people see... when you look at the pollster recently that admitted they weren't even doing polls and they gave the information to the New York Times. They weren't even a legit — it wasn't even a question of legit!"

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an 11 26

Trump’s Pentagon chief is waking up to a nightmare as the blame game ensues and he is right on the chopping block, according to a White House official.

Republicans are still reeling from Tuesday’s midterm bloodbath. Democrats have secured at least 54 Senate seats and crossed the 218-seat threshold for a House majority early Wednesday, winning every toss-up race except Alaska, which remained uncalled overnight.

One senior White House official speaking to the Washington Examiner suggested War Secretary Pete Hegseth was squarely in the firing line over his advice to Trump regarding the Iran war.

“The polls were right. Were Pete Hegseth’s projections about this war right? I hope he’s ready to explain to Congress what he told the president would happen,” that person said.

With Democrats taking control of both houses in January, Hegseth could soon face committees run by the opposing party, which means investigations and a likely impeachment.

The Iran war has become the common thread in Trumpworld’s finger-pointing. Trump himself told Fox News early Wednesday that the conflict was part of the problem, while also blaming candidates he said failed to inspire voters. A veteran operative working with Trump’s outside political operation told the outlet the results came down to Iran and its fallout, not campaign strategy.

Some former Trump insiders aren’t buying the excuses. Sarah Matthews, a deputy press secretary in Trump’s first term, pointed the finger straight at her old boss.

“Trump has no one to blame but himself,” she told the Washington Examiner, citing the Iran war, tariffs that drove up costs, mass deportations and corruption in the administration.

Trump has continued to downplay getting rid of his embattled Pentagon chief. He told Fox News host Bret Baier just after midnight Wednesday that there were unlikely to be personnel changes.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “It had nothing to do with my Cabinet. It was just a point — honestly, look. I’ve been doing a lot of great things for a long time, and it’s just a point in time.”

The president rarely signals the press before he fires his officials.

For now, Trump has aimed his fire elsewhere, spending election night blasting Fox News over its coverage and polling and branding Texas Gov. Greg Abbott a RINO after Abbott lost his race.

Another White House aide insisted to the outlet that nobody was at fault, chalking the losses up to a wave. But with Democrats poised to wield subpoena power on Capitol Hill, the questions about what Hegseth promised the president on Iran are not going away.

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BLUE TSUNAMI

Footage reveals GOP election watchers crying, praying as losses rolled in

Inner circle blames midterm bloodbath on secret 'Iran War' plan

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HEATED GMAIL 11 26

An activist dressed as a fossil fuel executive pours fake gas over fake money outside Shell’s headquarters in May 2026. During the 2026 midterm elections, the U.S. fossil fuel industry lit actual money on fire trying to elect Republicans. Photo by James Willoughby/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.

The U.S. oil and gas industry spent at least $182 million trying to elect Republicans in last night’s midterm elections¹.

It didn’t buy them very much.

Voters rejected fossil fuel allies and priorities across the country, not only stripping Republicans of control of both the House and Senate, but delivering stunning defeats in fossil-fueled governors’ races, state legislatures, regulatory commissions, and ballot measures.

Here are some notable examples.

HEATED

Now, none of this is to say that oil money was entirely defeated in the 2026 midterms. Many fossil fuel-backed Republicans, including Texas Senator August Pfluger and U.S House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, handily won reelection.

Nor is it to say that the oil industry’s priorities will suddenly disappear from U.S. politics. Donald Trump is still the president, and *many* elected Democrats are out and proud champions of methane gas, one of the most climate-polluting fuels on the planet. (Perhaps now this is a good time to remind everyone that James Talarico championed ExxonMobil on the campaign trail).

But last night demonstrated something worth remembering, particularly for people who care about climate change but often doubt whether meaningful progress is possible, and as we head into two more difficult years of trying to achieve some kind of climate action under Donald Trump.

Fossil fuel money is one of the most powerful forces in American politics. It is the biggest obstacle we face in preserving a livable climate for everyone on Earth.

But it is not invincible.

Not even close.

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RWW MISC 11 26

11/02/2026

byKyle Mantyla

A congressional candidate in Texas with “Nazi-ish” politics. A congressional candidate in Arizona who “stole valor” and then blamed his grandchildren. A demon-hunting gubernatorial candidate in Colorado who refuses to say precisely how many people he’s killed, and the congressional candidate dubbed the “goth groypette” rallying beside him. Another congressional candidate in Florida who called for nuking Gaza. A state senate candidate in Florida who marched with Nazis in Charlottesville. And the nominee for a North Carolina state senate seat who called into a local news station during an armed standoff with police.

So far, Department of Justice–led efforts to sow chaos, even as Americans are already voting, have fallen flat.

A congressional staffer who has worked with four representatives over the past four years, including GOP Senate hopeful Rep. Mike Collins (Georgia), appears closely tied to an anonymous social media account that denigrates female politicians, promotes political violence, calls for an end to democracy and laments the existence of civil rights laws, among other views, a Washington Post analysis of the account found. Details shared in posts on the account connect it to 25-year-old Jonathon Hatzistefanou, who works as a legislative assistant for Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Florida) and served as a former staff assistant for Collins, the Georgia Republican locked in a bitter fight for a Senate seat with Sen. Jon Ossoff (D).

Four of Lara Trump's five Fox voter panelists appeared at Mike Rogers campaign events. One also serves as treasurer of a multimillion-dollar pro-Rogers super PAC.

Secretly recorded audio from inside Peter Thiel’s first Nashville lecture reveals the tech billionaire’s obsession with the Antichrist—and his odd biblical revisionism.

As the midterm elections approach and a post-Trump America looms, some evangelicals and religious scholars are now considering a similar question: What will White evangelicals’ allegiance to President Trump cost them now that their day of reckoning is at hand?

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an 11 26

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman warns that the billionaires who groveled to flatter President Donald Trump after the 2024 election are now spending a fortune to stop a Democratic wave and the corruption probe that will come with it.

In a Substack post on the eve of the midterms, Krugman argued that Trump is not the only one on the ballot, but the American oligarchs have huge stakes in the outcome.

Krugman noted that Trump urging GOP voters to pretend he is on the ballot is exactly what his Democrat opponents hope they would do, given his historic unpopularity. He added that polls show Republicans almost certain to lose the House and likely to lose the Senate.

The Nobel Prize winner laid out two reasons why America’s oligarchs need to be worried ahead of a pending blue wave. He says that the Democratic Party is not ideologically uniform and is a center-left party as a whole, and would therefore be far “less friendly to plutocrats than the GOP.”

He continued: “And because they rushed to prostrate themselves at Trump’s feet after the 2024 election, many of the oligarchs may find themselves personally in the crosshairs if a Democratic Congress begins serious hearings on Trumpian corruption.”

Krugman said that fear explains the flood of money now pouring into the race. To put their enormous wealth into perspective, he cited a New York Times analysis finding that just 20 donors, about one ten-millionth of the adult population, have put roughly $2 billion into this election, which comes to about 15 percent of all campaign spending.

He noted that the wealthy donors are overwhelmingly backing the GOP. The Times tracks crypto and gambling donors separately, but he wrote that it is a good bet most of their money is also going to right-wing candidates.

Krugman said that their ability to pour so much money into campaigns is partly due to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which opened the floodgates to unlimited political spending.

But the bigger factor, he argued, is the staggering concentration of wealth at the very top. Citing estimates from Realtime Inequality, he said this tiny group holds more than ten times the share of national wealth it did a few decades ago.

Krugman closed by invoking Woodrow Wilson, who wrote in 1913: “If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.”

Krugman acknowledged there is plenty to criticize about Wilson, but said he was right on this point, and that America once again has men big enough to own its government.

“This midterm is a test of whether they will get away with it,” Krugman wrote. His final word to readers was simple: vote.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/us/politics/elon-musk-midterms.html

270m$? paxton

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dirty tricks conspir

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CONTEXT AN 10 26

Republicans are using their web of political action committees (PACs) and super PACs to funnel more and more money into television ads for politicians in tight races nationwide. But that money isn't translating to success.

Writing for the *Washington Monthly* on Tuesday, politics editor Bill Scher explained that although GOP campaigns and allied groups have amassed huge sums of money, Democrats have stretched their advertising dollars further because their candidates raise more funds directly and qualify for cheaper broadcast rates.

"Money is rarely the sole factor in determining election outcomes," wrote Scher. "Democrats spent more on Senate campaigns in 2024 and still lost the chamber. But if Republicans hope to hold off a Blue Wave in a midterm when their president’s job approval is cratering, money is their best bet."

He cited a recent report from The Cook Political Report's Amy Walter, who wrote that as of the end of September, both Republicans and Democrats found that "attack ads against Democrats were not yet 'moving the needle.'"

Scher said the GOP's biggest problem is that it's selling a bad product, so increasing marketing spend won't work.

"Voters don’t want to buy more Republican policies that have eaten away at their bank accounts. And when they’re mad about their thinning wallets, as I wrote previously, they are not easily riled up by appeals to transphobia and Islamophobia," he said.

According to AdImpact, Republicans spent $563 million on Senate advertising across nine battlegrounds through September, compared with Democrats’ $375 million. The report said that Republicans’ 26 percent advantage in broadcast spending produced just a 7 percent advantage in actual ad airings. In Texas, a 44 percent spending advantage yielded just 8 percent more ads airing. Democrats received more broadcast airings in Ohio and North Carolina despite spending less.

Therein lies the problem for Republicans: putting all their money into special interest groups rather than into candidates or campaigns.

The difference comes down to who buys the ads. Federal law gives qualified candidates the lowest broadcast advertising rates during the final 60 days before a general election. Whereas super PACs, which cannot legally coordinate with candidates, don't get the same discounted rate. Republicans have relied heavily on organizations such as President Donald Trump's MAGA, Inc., the Senate Leadership Fund and the Congressional Leadership Fund. But Democratic candidates finance more of their own advertising directly.

It was a tactic that was working, until a Supreme Court ruling on Sept. 4. Candidates have had the cheapest possible ad rates, seeing them as almost the price of a public service announcement. Super PACs, by contrast, don't qualify for that. In March, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) changed its policy, saying that the groups could have the same ad rate.

The debate has been fought in court over the past year. In August 2026, the federal appeals court ruled against the new FCC rules. The Supreme Court then stepped in and paused the appeals court ruling, allowing the PACs to have the cheaper rate. That means that by the time the Supreme Court decides on regulating campaign ad costs, the election will likely be over.

The only problem Republicans face now is ensuring they reserved the ad time in advance.

Democrats in North Carolina, Ohio and Texas have either eliminated or mitigated the GOP money advantage. That's not the case in New Hampshire.

"The state where Republicans enjoy the biggest disparity in broadcast ad airings, New Hampshire, has yet to pay off in improved poll numbers. Ads on behalf of Republican John Sununu, a former U.S. Senator, have aired nearly twice of much as those for Democratic nominee Chris Pappas. But Pappas has held leads between five and eight points in polls sampled over the latter half of September," said Scher. "Perhaps because Pappas currently represents half of the state in the U.S. House, he is a familiar enough figure to be inoculated from Republican attacks."

Where it appears to be working is in Maine, where Troy Jackson's "favorability scores in recent polling have been underwater after a blitz of attack ads" from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). Scher cited that in the state "61 percent of the ad spending is Republican and 61 percent of the broadcast airtime is Republican."

Jackson simply doesn't have the campaign cash to spend that much, and the Democratic Party isn't swooping in, like the GOP, to attack Collins.

Scher closed by citing recent reports in which Ken Paxton was recorded at a D.C. event complaining that he's never had less control over a race in his life. He said the whole campaign is being run out of Washington, including what issues they're focusing on. That's not happening with his opponent James Talarico. He cautions against complacency, but said that the reporting of Democrats being drowned out by GOP dollars is being overstated.

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CA-22, currently held by Republican Rep. David Valadao. Your contribution today will go directly to Randy Villegas.

: CA-48, currently held by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa. Your contribution today will go directly to Marni von Wilpert.

district: WI-03 currently held by Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden. Your contribution today will go directly to WI-03 Democratic nominee Rebecca Cooke

IA-01

R - Incumbent: Mariannette Miller-Meeks

D - Challenger: Christina Bohannan

Democrat Christina Bohannan came within 799 votes of flipping this seat in 2024, making this one of the most tantalizingly close rematches in the country. With the Iowa economy battered by tariffs, this is one of the party's best shots at a flip.

critical district: PA-10 currently held by Republican Rep. Scott Perry. Your contribution today will go directly to Janelle Stelson.

Mary Peltola's campaign for U.S. Senate. Sherrod

yahoo Order Date: September 23, 2026

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AN 10 26

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) threw cold water on a hot notion in Republican circles — namely, that they can offset their many disadvantages going into the 2026 midterms with their fundraising edge.

"[Republican] money advantage not what it appears to be on surface," Cornyn posted on X on Monday. Earlier he had posted an article by PoliticalWire which argued, “New data from AdImpact shows that, across nine of the most competitive Senate contests, Republicans had spent $563 million on advertising through the end of September versus $375 million for Democrats — a gap of 60 percent to 40 percent in favor of the GOP. But in terms of the actual number of ads aired, the difference is much smaller. In total, Republican ads have run roughly 290,000 times, while the Democrats’ have appeared approximately 250,000 times. That’s a much smaller difference of 54 percent to 46 percent.”

The article added, “Why hasn’t the GOP spending spree translated into a comparable advertising edge? Because Republicans have heavily relied on third-party groups like super PACs, which have to pay prevailing market rates for ads. Candidates, by contrast, are entitled by law to the lowest rates that broadcasters offer.”

Cornyn may have a personal reason for taking this stance. During his primary for the Republican Senate nomination, Cornyn lost in an upset to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after President Donald Trump unexpectedly endorsed the latter. Even though Cornyn had voted with Trump on almost every major issue, Paxton was viewed as more loyal due to his far right views. Many of Cornyn's fellow Republicans were disappointed by Trump's actions.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said the endorsement “puts that seat in jeopardy” and asked, “How does that help strengthen the president’s hand when we lose a state like Texas?” She later added she was "supremely disappointed."

Similarly Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) described Paxton as “an ethically challenged individual,” continuing that “John Cornyn is an outstanding senator and deserved, in my judgment, the president’s support. Obviously, it’s the president’s call, but I’m disappointed that he did it.”

By contrast the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) argued, “I think Paxton can win. I think it’d be three times more expensive.”

Since losing his primary to Paxton, Cornyn has in some ways acted with more political freedom than might have been the case if he was up for reelection. In September, for example, he implicitly endorsed Democrat Jon Rosenthal in his race for the Texas Railroad Commission after Republican nominee Bo French made a racist comment about the ethnic composition of a crowd of college football fans at a University of Texas game.

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AN 9 26

A new theme is emerging in midterm campaigns: they're talking about rampant corruption in Washington.

The Washington Sun (formerly NOTUS) noticed that campaign ads are starting to pop up on both sides of the aisle, though predominantly among Democratic candidates attacking other lawmakers and the president for corruption.

A few weeks ago, a Gallup poll indicated that while economic issues continue to be top of mind for voters — whether it's the economy, inflation, gas prices, housing affordability or grocery costs — behind those is the concern that the government has become pay-to-play.

In New Hampshire, former Sen. John Sununu (R) is being forced to defend allegations that he's "cashing in" on his Senate seat after he went to work for a lobbying firm as a "senior policy advisor" following his loss in 2008. His opponent alleges that he has been “helping big pharma and big oil make billions, while we pay the price.”

The pro-Sununu crowd then attacked Rep. Chris Pappas, who is married to a former policy lawyer for Amazon. Pappas' husband also registered as a lobbyist 11 years ago and worked for Amazon for four years, until 2019.

It's just one example out of "dozens," the Sun reported.

“We’re seeing more of these kinds of ads than ever before,” said GOP pollster Robert Blizzard. “It’s across every age group, income level, a feeling that they’re getting screwed but the stock market is somehow high, so the frustration with politics-as-usual, the assumed corruption that goes along with that, is at a fever pitch.”

It comes amid reports that President Donald Trump is cashing in on his presidency, making 28,700 stock trades from his inauguration until June 2026. Trump is also raking in cash from his cryptocurrency venture. His sons are buying into companies that are then given lucrative government contracts.

Still, it isn't only Trump that is name-checked in the ads. The ads follow the theme of a politician taking donations from special interest groups and making policies that hurt voters because they're being paid to do so. Meanwhile, all other politicians or watchdogs refuse to call them out.

“Trump, and his corruption, is baked in on everything, which is why the corruption piece is so good,” a one Democratic consultant working with congressional races said. “You can link it directly to the candidates, and not make our ads just be about being anti-Trump.”

A Democratic pollster explained, “They pushed it too far and pushed it past where normal voters are willing to put up with it.”

Strategists are seeing an opening on the issue for the first time because voters are frustrated seeing a corrupt system while they're struggling to get by.

Democratic pollster Angie Kuefler has conducted her own corruption-related research, finding that voters don't merely want Democrats to pledge to stop GOP corruption; they want it across the board.

“As the candidate, you have to make clear that you’re going to take on corruption in both parties, including your own, and then you have to tie that corruption to costs going up for the voter, because what changes voting behavior is demonstrating the impact on them,” she told the Sun. “Tying a bad, corrupt politician to rising costs is a double whammy, one-two punch, that connects to both the problem in politics and to their pain.”

The Sun obtained a research memo on the matter for a Democratic super PAC saying that 52 percent of voters indicate the “most harmful” corruption likely involves “special interests, billionaires … acting within the law” to elect politicians who then owe them.

"A third of those polled said criminal acts by individual politicians were more harmful than the influence of special interests," the report said.

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MMA 8 26

Fox guest: Social media post from TPUSA spokesman highlighting affordability was pushing a socialist agenda

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CONTEXT VOTER SUPPRESS, GOP STEAL ELECTION

HOUSING BILL HOSTAGE 6 26

STAKES: IMPEACHMENT, DEMS OVERSIGHT SUBPOENA

mma

June 26, 2026, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Now, Johnson goes up there, and we're advocates of this housing bill. It's an important bill, but it's not a must pass by any measure. They're going to use it as a messaging bill.

...

Help me out here. They're shipping the president the bill today?

CLETA MITCHELL (GUEST): Well, I don't know what day, but what I read last night is that the speaker told the press that they would be sending the housing bill to the president. Once they do that, it is — he has ten days to sign it. And if he doesn't — or veto it. And if he doesn't veto it and does nothing, it becomes a law without his signature.

What my message is, is that he has to veto that bill. He caught everybody by surprise and made the MAGA base — I basically burst into tears when I saw that he had cancelled the bill signing for that housing bill, that was supposed to take place at noon on Wednesday. And he just cancelled it. I had sent some things around and —

BANNON: That was amazing. That was amazing.

MITCHELL: And it was wonderful, wonderful.

BANNON: Wonderful.

MITCHELL: And he needs to stick to it. I'm asking everybody within the sound of my voice to call the White House today — 202-456-1111 — talk to a live operator and say: Mr. President, please veto that bill until the SAVE America Act is put on your desk.

...

BANNON: We're big proponents of some of the elements of this housing bill. It's not perfect, but we're a big believer in that it can have great things, but it's not a game changer.

MITCHELL: No.

BANNON: Whoever's telling the president that's going to motivate the base to go out there is just — they're dead wrong. They don't know the base, and they're not spending time with them.

//

  1. ### On The Weeknight, Angelo Carusone discusses what MAGA media figures are promising Bill Pulte will do as acting DNI

06/25/26 8:03 PM EDT

  1. ### Media Matters weekly newsletter, June 26

06/26/26 11:01 AM EDT

  1. ### Benny Johnson: “These are the Kamala Harris states and every single one of them was a rigged election”

06/25/26

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6 26

MAMDANI DSA 3 WINS NYC; BRAVEHEART GOP 3 OF 4 GONE BOEBERT; CORNYN, CASSIDY

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an 5 26

Over the past year, election-denying allies of President Donald Trump from both inside the government and out have sought voting data from across the country in an effort to “investigate” their assertions of electoral fraud. Now, according to new reporting from Talking Points Memo, “election conspiracy theorists” are attempting to lay the groundwork for a Department of Justice probe into Michigan.

In April, Michigan officials were left in “bewilderment” when DOJ Civil Division chief Harmeet Dhillon demanded public records pertaining to the 2024 election from the Wayne County clerk, asserting that it was part of an investigation into voter fraud. Officials weren’t bewildered because they were surprised at the request — quite the opposite, as the FBI has been scooping up voting data from districts across the country that voted against Trump, from Arizona to Georgia — but because Dhillon had sent it to the wrong office entirely, addressing it to the county clerk, when in Michigan, townships run elections.

According to local officials, her request not only suggests that Trump’s DOJ doesn’t understand the basic facts of electoral processes, but it raises pressing questions about what the president’s allies intend to do with the voting data. Election denying activists in Michigan are not shy about answering that question, asserting that they’re conducting what they call an “audit” of electoral results in an effort to fight a “cabal” of their enemies.

As Talking Points Memo explains, these investigations are “being carried out with the help of various election conspiracy theorists who are now in positions of power in the government. Kurt Olsen, a 2020 election denier, has been working as White House election security czar. Heather Honey, another activist, has an election security role at DOJ. Clay Parikh, another special government employee involved in the Fulton County raid.” While these figures provide federal support, election denying activists on the ground are doing much of the legwork.

According to Talking Points, “voter fraud alarmists” are “using documents obtained last year from a massive FOIA lawsuit that sought copies of Detroit’s 2020 ballots and other records. Yehuda Miller, a New Jersey-based activist who has been involved in election denialism for the last several years, obtained hundreds of thousands of ballot images from the City of Detroit. The question now on the minds of some Michigan elections officials is whether Miller’s ‘audit’ — regardless of how baseless and misleading the results may be — will prompt federal action. And, whether the conclusions that Miller has drawn may have already made their way to the Trump DOJ.”

Chris Thomas, who ran elections for the state of Michigan for nearly 40 years and faced a “mob” trying to stop the count in 2020, says that “those seeking the records have been in communication with a voter fraud alarmism nonprofit called Michigan Fair Elections and with the far-right, conspiracy theorist website Gateway Pundit, and say that they’ve enlisted dozens of volunteers to comb through the ballots.” He says it’s possible that the DOJ already has the FOIA data, and that the “‘audit’ could yield results that, while bogus to anyone familiar with election law, prompt some form of action” from the agency. He has his doubts, however, that the amateur investigation would prove useful in any potential criminal proceedings, saying, “I don’t think that stuff would stand up at all.”

While Talking Points notes that it’s unclear whether Miller is working directly with the DOJ, his activist allies have said they would share their findings with the agency.

“I sure as heck am going to be sharing it with everybody that I know, and I’ve got a lot of contacts up in the DOJ,” said Patrick Colbeck, an election conspiracy theorist and former GOP Michigan state senator. “Everything they share, I will make sure it gets to them,” he asserted, referring to the DOJ.

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an 5 26

President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are planning on sending troops to polling places during the 2026 midterm elections, according to a recent report by The New Republic.

“The Republican National Committee announced Tuesday that it has deployed poll watchers and election observers in at least 17 states for the midterm elections,” The New Republic’s Hafiz Rashid reported on Tuesday. “In a post on X, RNC Chairman Joe Gruters posted an audio clip where he said, ‘We’ve already deployed field staff and we’ve hired state directors and election integrity directors.’”

Although Gruters did not specify which states he was targeting, he made it clear that this is part of the GOP’s plan to retain control of Congress during the 2026 midterm elections.

“We focus on the big picture,” Gruters said. “We focus on winning. We have a plan. We’re executing the plan.”

As Rsahid reported, Trump himself has said he is considering sending the National Guard and ICE to voting locations in November.

“It’s a disturbing thing for Trump to say, just two days after he called for an ‘Election Integrity Army,’” Rashid wrote. “In a Truth Social post, Trump claimed that Republicans had one in 2024 ‘in every single State to preserve the sanctity of each legal vote’ and attacked Democrats for forming their own elections task force led by former Attorney General Eric Holder.” In light of Trump’s rhetoric and the RNC’s actions, Rashid argued that “it appears that the RNC has heard Trump loud and clear, and is taking action. It’s on top of everything else the Republican Party is doing to meddle in the midterms and beyond, from mid-decade redistricting that disenfranchises Democrats and Black Americans to spreading election-denial conspiracies from 2020. It has even installed election denialists in local governments and election boards across the country.”

He concluded, “Deploying ICE agents or National Guard troops at the polls seems to be a ploy to frighten people of color from voting, and is unprecedented. It appears that the midterms are shaping up to be a tense battle in more ways than one.”

As conservative columnist George F. Will wrote in The Washington Post earlier this year, Trump has had multiple chances to litigate the 2020 presidential election, and has had all of his core claims thoroughly debunked.

“Someone should read to him ‘Lost, Not Stolen,’ a 2022 report by eight conservatives (two former Republican senators, three former federal appellate judges, a former Republican solicitor general, and two Republican election law specialists),” Will explained. “They examined all 187 counts in the 64 court challenges filed in multiple states by Trump and his supporters. Twenty cases were dismissed before hearings on their merits, 14 were voluntarily dismissed by Trump and his supporters before hearings. Of the 30 that reached hearings on the merits, Trump’s side prevailed in only one, Pennsylvania, involving far too few votes to change the state’s result.”

Will added, “Trump’s batting average? .016. In Arizona, the most exhaustively scrutinized state, a private firm selected by Trump’s advocates confirmed Trump’s loss, finding 99 additional Biden votes and 261 fewer Trump votes.” Therefore he wrote of Trump, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

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AN 5 26

In April it was announced that Deputy Chief of Staff James Blaire would be leaving the White House to head President Donald Trump’s midterm political operation. At the time, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles declared him “a top lieutenant of the President’s,” saying Blaire had provided “invaluable” service for nearly a decade. Trump himself asserted Blaire as “one of the brightest political minds in the Country who has done tremendous work to prepare Republicans to DEFY LONGSTANDING HISTORY AND WIN the Midterms, just as he helped me do in 2024, BY A LANDSLIDE.”

On Wednesday,Politico ran an interview with Blaire in which he revealed the approach he’s going to use, with his core strategy being “attack, attack, attack.”

One form of that attack involves gerrymandering. When asked about the shifting midterm maps in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision, which some say gutted the Voting Rights Act, Blaire noted, “You see Louisiana taking action. You see Tennessee taking action. You see Alabama taking action.” He explained that there is a “robust appetite” to seize on redistricting opportunities, saying, “Here's what I know: the overall efforts of our strategy will net a substantial swing of seats to Republicans.”

Whether that strategy can prevail in the face of voter outrage is up for debate. Asked about the president’s abysmal polling in regard to the war with Iran and its attendant economic consequences, which many argue will mean doom for the GOP in November, Blaire dodged, trying to pin the blame on his opponents.

“The Democrats will have to convince the electorate how they’re going to make their lives more affordable when they tried to raise taxes on 90 percent of Americans by $4 trillion last summer,” he argued, ignoring the skyrocketing cost of living driven by the war in Iran and Trump’s tariff regime, which experts say amounts to one of the largest tax hikes in history. “And that’s just the beginning of the contrasts we will make with them. Swing voters already think the Democratic Party's too far left, and we’re going to make sure voters know just how far left they are. They are woke, weak and way too liberal. And the whole country will be reminded of that.”

He also addressed concerns raised by Republican donors over the “unspent millions” that appear to have disappeared into Trump’s war chest, saying not only that worries about where the money has gone are baseless, but that Republicans are positioned to outspend Democrats via the president’s MAGA Inc. super PAC. What’s more, he claimed that while a unified GOP is focused on raising money, their Democratic opponents are “divided, they don’t have confidence in their leadership, their candidates are fighting themselves, they are wasting their money.”

While Politico notes that Blaire projects a striking sense of confidence in his assertions, the reality behind his claims is less certain. Republicans are in fact “deeply divided” over matters like the war with Iran, the abysmal economy and Trump’s mishandling of the Epstein files. Congressional Republicans have struggled to overcome in-party fights over a range of issues, and on Wednesday, three GOP senators voted against Trump’s actions in the Middle East. What's more, Republican candidates have been battling against one another in primaries across the country, as some GOP leaders have taken steps to distance themselves from the party’s MAGA wing.

But Blaire never suggested that his political strategy should be factual, leaning instead into relentless offensiveness.

“It’s always the strategy,” he said. “Attack, attack, attack. And when in doubt, attack some more. The best defense is a great offense.”

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NEW VARIANT, SUPERPAC TO BOOST WEAK DEM CAND?

AN 5 26

Super PACs with ties to Republicans are spending money to promote weaker, left-wing candidates in Democratic primaries, in an apparent effort to help Republicans retain control of the House, The New York Times reports.

“They’re going into Democratic primaries and literally trying to boost the most extreme candidates and oppose the Blue Dog-endorsed candidates that, if they win, are going to beat the Republicans in the general,” U.S. Rep. Adam Gray (D-CA) said in an interview with the Times. The Blue Dogs are more centrist Democrats.

One “new mystery super PAC with ties to Republicans has spent more than $1 million meddling in at least three Democratic congressional primaries to select preferred opponents,” the Times reports. That group is spending money to promote “a left-wing sex therapist in Texas who has been accused of bigotry and antisemitism by leaders in both parties.”

It is also running ads in Democratic primaries in Pennsylvania and Nebraska.

In some of these races the spending is an effort to disrupt Democratic candidates “who are part of the Democratic Party’s ‘red to blue’ program, a special designation for top recruits in key races that could determine control of the House.”

The Times calls these “interventions in the opposing party’s primaries,” and reports that they are “apparently to elevate Democrats viewed as weaker candidates,” suggesting that “the race for control of the House has entered an intensive new phase in which both parties are vying for every imaginable edge.”

“Some Republicans privately believe the party’s best chance to hold power this year is to cast Democrats as extremists,” the Times reports.

Another super PAC formally aligned with Republicans is promoting a progressive Democrat in California.

Maureen Galindo is running for a Democratic seat from Texas. Party leaders are backing Johnny Garcia, who has worked in the local sheriff’s office. Despite having raised less than $10,000, Galindo finished first in the primary, advancing to a May runoff.

“In a text message,” the Times reports, “Ms. Galindo suggested the money for the mailer had come from ‘a billionaire zionist who made the pac to sabotage candidates,’ using the type of language that has previously prompted charges of antisemitism, including from Senator Jacky Rosen, Democrat of Nevada, and Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who called her ‘openly bigoted.'”

Galindo told the Times, “Dems and Republicans uniting against me in the same week with the same message is evidence that theyre [sic] working together for the zionist billionaires that control our government and tax money.”

There are more races that Democratic strategists expect Republicans to meddle in, including in California, Michigan and Colorado.

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AN 5 26

President Donald Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, announced that she believes the outcome of the 2020 election could change after their investigations.

She recalled Trump calling her to come down to Mar-a-Lago and that they discussed why he won Florida but failed in so many other states.

Wiles said in passing, "I think we are going to find out he actually did win" those states.

Trump's FBI seized all of the ballots from Fulton County earlier this year, leaving no copies or additional records that could compare the originals. Officials in Fulton County have concerns that the ballots could be tampered with to support Trump's case.

In response to the comments, Wiles was blasted by those who called the perpetuation of the 2020 election conspiracy theories absurd.

"Psychosis," wrote ex-Republican Tim Miller after seeing the clip.

"Susie Wiles is a crazy person. Trump did not get cheated out of states in the 2020 election, and to claim otherwise indicates you have serious cognitive problems," commented influencer Aaron Rupar.

One person recalled, "Reminder: the Trump team filed 62 lawsuits related to the 2020 election. Half of them were tossed out. They were allowed to the opportunity to present evidence in the other half, all of which related to vote tallies were also thrown out. They won one lawsuit, which had nothing to do with the 2020 election itself. Media surrogates tried to every possible angle, even blaming a Venezuelan conspiracy to tamper with voting machines, which got them lawsuits they all spectacularly lost. At every opportunity to present evidence, they've failed over and over again."

"Insanely weird to keep this going so many years later. Susie Wiles has got to be smarter than to actually believe this," commented author and columnist Evan Barker.

Another person warned that this is all part of a larger plot, "all part of the 'stolen' election script. They're going to use it to give Trump a third term."

Former national security official Brian P. McKeon wrote, "If he did win, then he is ineligible to continue serving as President."

Campaign strategist Jacob Perry commented, "For years people have been telling me that Susie Wiles was the sane one who would keep things somewhat normal in the White House. That is clearly not the case."

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FETTERMAN COULD FLIP? 5 25

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AN 5 26

CNN analyst Harry Enten revealed on Monday support for President Donald Trump is “collapsing” among GOP-leaning independent voters — a core constituency.

“Who are the people who are dragging down President Trump’s approval rating?” Enten asked. “We are talking about a very important bloc for the president of the United States. That is, Republican leaning independents.”

In his first term in office, Trump at this point was at 73 percent support from that core constituency. But that’s changed.

“Down he goes, an absolute collapse,” among those voters, Enten explained. “Now, just 53% of independents who lean Republican now approve of the President of the United States.”

Enten also said that during the 2024 election against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump received 91 percent support from those independent GOP-leaning voters.

“But down he goes, down into the deep blue sea,” he said. “Now, at 53% on the job approval rating,” noting the 38-point drop from where Trump was during the 2024 election.

“This is a core group for Donald Trump, and they are waving, ‘Adios, amigos, goodbye.'”

Enten also suggested that Republican members of Congress are saying, “Oh, my God, I hope this doesn’t affect me.” He said, “if it does, a lot of those swing district congressional members, right on the Republican side, will be waving adios, amigos goodbye.”

Enten said what’s going on is GOP-leaning independent voters had supported Republican candidates “by 83 points, but now it’s 68 points — that’s a 15 point drop, again, in only 18 months time.”

“These are not numbers that Republicans win with. These are numbers Republicans lose with,” he warned.

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HEP WHAT CONNECTION TO FLYNN CONF? CLETA WAS THERE

At Summit, Election Deniers Press for Trump to Take Over Midterms — ProPublica

Election experts say that the meeting reflects an intensifying push to persuade Trump to take unprecedented actions to affect the vote in November. Courts have largely blocked his efforts to reshape elections through an executive order, and legislation has stalled in Congress that would mandate strict voter ID requirements across the country.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that activists associated with those at the summit have been circulating a draft of an executive order that would ban mail-in ballots and get rid of voting machines as part of a federal takeover. Peter Ticktin, a lawyer who worked on the executive order and had a client at the summit, told ProPublica these actions were “all part of the same effort.”...

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4 6? 26 TRMS INTEL COMM DEM

TRUMP WILL STEal mark warner fabricate emergency

Rachel Maddow Show

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AN 4 26

President Donald Trump is lying in ways that strangle democracy, and yet according to a conservative commentator, Americans who should take this more seriously simply are not doing so.

“So far this year, the president has failed to convince Congress to pass his SAVE America Act, which among other things would require voters nationwide to show proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote or vote by mail,” wrote The Bulwark’s Andrew Egger on Tuesday. “But last week, he tried to scratch his election-meddling itch in another way: a one-weird-trick-style executive order trying to seize federal control of mail voting by creating new lists of whose ballots the Postal Service can and can’t mail.”

Egger pointed out that, like most of Trump’s attempts to throttle voting in the 2026 midterm elections, his effort now will almost certainly fail. Yet just because Trump will lose in court does not mean he will not achieve his larger objectives.

“In all likelihood, what the order will actually do, at least as a legal matter, is nothing,” Egger wrote. “Its strategy — which involves ordering the Department of Homeland Security to create a list of ‘approved’ absentee voters, and ordering the USPS not to mail requested ballots to anybody else — is legally hilarious, a slapped-together usurpation of states’ election authorities without the slightest basis in federal law. The order has already drawn a plethora of major lawsuits, which are all but guaranteed swift success.”

The problem is that “it remains gospel in MAGA circles that Democrats fiendishly stole the 2020 election on behalf of Joe Biden. And Trump keeps testing the waters of how much bullying of election officials he can get away with, most notably with the FBI’s January raid on the elections office in Fulton County, Georgia.” For this reason, Trump will almost certainly take advantage of how pro-democracy advocates celebrate his loss in court, but meanwhile spreads misinformation intended to empower him to find other ways to stop elections from hurting him.

“We should take heed of all this,” Egger warned. “Trump really is losing support at a remarkable rate; all the old received wisdom about the impregnability of Teflon Don really does seem to have fallen apart. But Trump still has his hands around the neck of American democracy with a much surer grip than he had in 2020. And too much of the country seems strangely confident — just as in 2020, and with even less justification now than then — that he’ll simply choose not to squeeze.”

Another conservative writer, George F. Will, explained for The Washington Post earlier this year that Trump’s claims about the 2020 election being stolen have been decisively debunked.

"Someone should read to him ‘Lost, Not Stolen,’ a 2022 report by eight conservatives (two former Republican senators, three former federal appellate judges, a former Republican solicitor general, and two Republican election law specialists),” Will wrote. “They examined all 187 counts in the 64 court challenges filed in multiple states by Trump and his supporters. Twenty cases were dismissed before hearings on their merits, 14 were voluntarily dismissed by Trump and his supporters before hearings. Of the 30 that reached hearings on the merits, Trump’s side prevailed in only one, Pennsylvania, involving far too few votes to change the state’s result.”

Will added, “Trump’s batting average? .016. In Arizona, the most exhaustively scrutinized state, a private firm selected by Trump’s advocates confirmed Trump’s loss, finding 99 additional Biden votes and 261 fewer Trump votes.” Therefore he wrote of Trump, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

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an 4 26

Dan Bishop has been lucky enough to score several jobs in President Donald Trump's administration after he failed to win in a primary race and it isn't the first time.

Writing for the Rachel Maddow Show blog, producer Steve Benen noted Bishop was first hired after he gave up his North Carolina House seat to run for attorney general in the state. He lost. So the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) hired him.

After less than a year, he left OMB for a prime spot at the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina. After five months, he was shifted to another job: Winning Trump's 2020 campaign, in 2026.

Trump has spent the first part of the year revisiting the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden. In Fulton County, Georgia, the FBI seized ballots from the past election. In Maricopa County, Arizona, in early March, an FBI agent took more than three dozen hard drives and servers containing data from a partisan audit of the 2020 election from the state Senate building. The audit was done by the company "Cyber Ninjas" and lambasted by legal experts and watchdog groups as a "sham audit."

Benen cited the Wall Street Journal report, which cited Bishop's recent "quiet" appointment to the investigative team at the Justice Department.

"Attorney General Pam Bondi, last week, quietly authorized Dan Bishop, a U.S. attorney in North Carolina, to pursue election-related probes across the country, according to a copy of the order," the Journal cited. One DOJ official told the reporters that "Bishop, a former congressman who voted against certifying Biden’s 2020 win, will also examine voter-roll data the Justice Department has been collecting from states in an effort to determine whether noncitizens have illegally registered or cast ballots."

Benen wrote, "Given his record, it’s tough to be optimistic about Bishop overseeing these efforts in a detached and independent way."

The report indicated that "the lines have grown blurry," Benen said, when it comes to how the DOJ is being used to pursue 2020 election conspiracy theories. While Bishop is concerned, Benen, it's the combination of all of it that sent up the red flags.

"Making matters worse is the scope of the efforts. The Bishop news is important, but it dovetails with the president and his team seizing ballots and election records in Georgia and Arizona; seizing voting equipment in Puerto Rico; waging an aggressive campaign to acquire voter rolls from states where Democrats won; organizing an unnecessary FBI elections 'briefing' for state officials; and providing Kurt Olsen, one of Trump’s highly controversial former campaign lawyers, with classified information as he tried to advance election conspiracy theories," Benen explained.

While it's part of Trump's continued efforts to relitigate the 2020 election, it's also part of a larger campaign to restrict voting rights.

As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained it in 2020, “If Republicans don’t challenge and change the US election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again. President Trump should not concede. We’re down to less – 10,000 votes in Georgia. He’s going to win North Carolina. We have gone from 93,000 votes to less than 20,000 votes in Arizona, where more – more votes to be counted.”

Trump further commented in early March that passing voter restrictions “will guarantee the midterms."

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AN 3 28 26

Attorneys representing Fulton County faced off against the U.S. Department of Justice in federal court Friday, seeking the return of more than 650 boxes of 2020 election records that FBI agents seized from a county elections warehouse in January.

The hearing, which was held in a federal courthouse in Atlanta, was scheduled last week after the judge announced that attempts at mediation had been unsuccessful.

Justification for January’s raid, which was authorized by Magistrate Judge Catherine M. Salinas, relied heavily on recycled claims of irregularities during the 2020 election, which critics say have already been adjudicated or debunked in the nearly six years since the election took place.

Fulton County, which is home to much of the city of Atlanta, was also at the center of President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen in Georgia and other swing states.

Abbe Lowell, who represented the county, argued Friday that an affidavit used to justify the raid relied on inaccurate testimony, with witnesses who “completely misstate each of the alleged problems.” He also argued that Salinas was given incomplete information about the significance of documents like ballot images and double-scanned ballots, and that she may have reached a different conclusion if she had been given more accurate information.

Expert witness Ryan Macias, an election technology expert who served as an advisor for Fulton County during the 2020 election, also testified that the events outlined in the affidavit include routine mistakes and were not indicative of any intentional misconduct.

But attorney Michael Weisbuch, who represented the federal government, argued that federal agents who drafted the affidavit did include opposing perspectives and that the raid didn’t amount to a “callous disregard” of the county’s rights.

He also argued that Fulton County has access to copies of the election records and that county officials have yet to produce a compelling reason why they need the original documents returned.

Judge J. P. Boulee, a Trump appointee, did not say when he would issue a ruling in the case.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts expressed concern about the Trump administration attempting to take control over elections, and said the federal government could use similar tactics to seize election documents in other states.

“There is no doubt in my mind that this is a blueprint,” Pitts said. “If they’re successful here, in Fulton County, they will take this show on the road, and that’s why we’re going to fight fire with fire. We’re going to fight like hell to make sure that that does not happen.”

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AHA doh: 3 26

FLYNN WANTED MIL TO GRAB BALLOTS/VOTING MACHINES; TRUMP T2 IS USING DOJ LAWFARE RETALIATION NO RULE OF LAW TO DO IT; SHERIFF / OATHKEEPER COPYCAT TO PLEASE DEAR LEADER, BUT BUILDS CRED FOR BIG LIE ~ 2026 MIDTERMS

AN 3 26

In Riverside County, California, Sheriff Chad Bianco — a Donald Trump supporter and former Oath Keepers member who is running for governor of California as a Republican — recently announced that his department had seized 650,000 voting ballots cast in a 2025 election. Bianco, at alate March news conference, told reporters, "This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes reported.""

MS NOW's Steve Benen, in an opinion column published on March 24, argues that Bianco is conducting an "investigation that appears entirely baseless" and could be used as a "template" for MAGA Republicans to challenge election results they don't like.

"For those inclined to be charitable," Benen explains, "there is a relatively benign interpretation of these developments. It's possible, for example, that Bianco is simply trying to generate attention for his longshot gubernatorial candidacy. Relatedly, the sheriff likely realizes that ballot seizures will please the White House, which in turn, may lead to greater institutional support from his party in the coming months. The move, in other words, may very well be little more than an elaborate campaign stunt that will have little practical impact and will be largely forgotten after Bianco loses. But then, there are the less benign interpretations of what transpired."

The "Rachel Maddow Show" producer notes that Bianco's investigation "comes on the heels of Trump sending the FBI to seize election materials in Georgia in response to other assorted conspiratorial complaints."

"The broader concern is that a template is taking shape, offering precedents for law enforcement to start making plans to seize ballots in areas nationwide — after or even during official counts," Benen warns. "What's more, the more frequently this happens, the more Americans may be led to believe it's normal and routine for law enforcement officials to seize and impound ballots — despite the fact that this is neither normal nor routine."

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Steve Bannon: ICE at airports can be "a test case to get, to really perfect ICE's involvement in the 2026 midterm elections" | Media Matters for America

AN 3 26

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AN 3 26

Many of you are justifiably worried that Trump will interfere in the midterm elections. He’s worried he’ll lose Congress: His polls continue to plummet. The economy is worse than ever. Prices are rising. Few new jobs are being created. And his war in Iran is going badly.

We also know he has no qualms about trying to overturn elections. He’s tried before. In February, he stated he would only respect the results of the 2026 midterms “if the elections are honest” — echoing his dangerous threat from 2020. He’s also kicked off a redistricting war and called forelections to be “nationalized.”

He continues to make the baseless claim that noncitizens are voting in our elections, but multiple investigations and fact-checks by election officials from both parties have repeatedly confirmed it is exceedingly rare.

Hence, it’s important now — eight months before the midterms — to “harden” our election systems and be vigilant against what he’s likely to do.

So today I’d like your thoughts on what he’smost likelyto do and where the biggest threats lie.

I’m most concerned about Trump interfering in one of these ways:

1. Enacting a federal law requiring proof of citizenship (birth certificate or passport) and an exactly matching current photo ID, in person, to vote.

These requirements are in the SAVE America Act, which the House passed last month and is now under consideration in the Senate. It would disqualify an estimated 21 million people from voting, most of them Democrats, because they can’t afford the cost or hassle of finding their birth certificates — including married women who have changed their names.

The act also threatens election officials with imprisonment if they fail to uphold the bill’s strict voter documentation requirements, and it makes it harder to cast mail-in ballots (throwing into chaos eight states where vote-by-mail is currently the primary method of voting).

The act is a risk, to be sure, but Trump can’t get this measure through the Senate, because Democrats are sure to filibuster it. The only way it has a prayer is if almost every Senate Republican voted to abolish the filibuster. But this is doubtful because some Senate Republicans fear that without the filibuster, Democrats would be able to pass laws that Republicans abhor when Dems are next in the majority.

2. Stationing ICE and Border Patrol agents at polling places.

Some worry that Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents will be deployed at polling locations during the midterm elections. The intent would obviously be to intimidate voters, especially in immigrant communities and communities of color, and create fear at the ballot box.

This is also a risk, but (for what it’s worth) the Department of Homeland Security says it won’t happen. Heather Honey, who serves as deputy assistant secretary for election integrity at DHS, told a group of secretaries of state that “any suggestion that ICE will be present at any polling location is simply not true.”

Meanwhile, measures to restrict federal agents from operating at or near election-related locations have been introduced in more than half a dozen states. Plus, a federal law dating to the end of the Civil War already bans sending the military or other “armed men” to polling places, except to repel armed enemies of the United States. Finally, the U.S. Constitution also gives states — not the president or federal government — the responsibility for running elections.

3. Seizing ballots and voting machines.

Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, has been working for months on an investigation into foreign election interference in U.S. voting machines, which could become a pretext for the regime’s seizing them to protect “national security.” Gabbard and the FBI induced Puerto Rico to turn over some of its voting machines and software images for analysis last year.

Gabbard was also on hand on January 28 in Fulton County, Georgia, when the FBI — acting on a search warrant that relied on debunked claims about the 2020 race — seized hundreds of boxes of ballots from a government warehouse. And the Department of Justice has issued lawsuits against dozens of states for copies of their voter rolls that include sensitive personal information.

It’s not hard to imagine the FBI or Justice Department trying to seize ballots while the 2026 midterm votes are being counted. Trump demanded as much in 2020, although his then attorney general rejected that as unlawful. Pam Bondi, the current attorney general, has shown herself willing to do whatever Trump asks, regardless of what the law says.

But the federal courts are unlikely to allow this. A president doesn’t have the authority to regulate elections, which the Constitution assigns to the states.

4. Getting pro-Trump forces to take over state and local voting systems.

Pro-Trump forces in swing states are trying to change election rules and take over local voting systems.

In recent months, Republicans in Michigan, Arizona, and North Carolina have sought changes in election rules that would hobble likely Democratic voters. They want to alter the places and times of voting to disadvantage Democrats, require high levels of proof of citizenship, and challenge the certifications of Democratic winners. Republicans in more than half of state legislatures have introduced legislation to restrict mail-in ballots.

But many of these initiatives have already been struck down by state and federal courts, and voting rights lawyers tell me that others will be challenged on First and 14th Amendment grounds.

Few state proposals to restrict mail-in ballots are under active consideration, presumably because Republicans worry that the restriction may hurt them as much if not more than Democrats. (Ditto for a bill now before Congress to ban mail-in ballots.)

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AN PP 3 26

In his top post at the Department of Homeland Security, David Harvilicz sets policy on protecting the nation’s elections infrastructure, including voting machines.

He’s also the co-founder of a company with James Penrose, who helped hatch debunked conspiracy theories blaming hacked voting machines for Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election. Penrose assisted in a push to seize voting machines to overturn Trump’s defeat.

On social media, Harvilicz has called for doing away with voting machines, saying they are “eminently vulnerable to exploitation.” In a March post, he wrote that “DHS needs to ban voting machines for all federal elections. The time is now.” He also has repeatedly questioned the validity of Democratic electoral victories and pushed for Republicans to overhaul electoral systems to their advantage.

Election experts as well as current and former DHS officials say Harvilicz’s central role in overseeing the security of electoral systems and voting machines is especially concerning at a time when the administration is taking unprecedented steps to relitigate Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen. That includes the FBI’s seizure of 2020 voting records from Fulton County, Georgia, and having a team working for Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, take custody of voting machines used in Puerto Rico in 2020.

“The security of our election infrastructure depends on leadership that is trusted, impartial and grounded in evidence — not individuals who have promoted conspiracy theories about the very systems they are now responsible for protecting,” said Danielle Lang, vice president for voting rights and the rule of law at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan pro-democracy organization. “Placing someone with that background in charge of policies affecting election security can undermine public confidence in our elections at a time when trust is already fragile.”

DHS didn’t answer detailed questions about Harvilicz or his team, providing a more general statement about the work done by the agency. “DHS and its employees are focused on keeping our elections safe, secure, and free,” it said. “Every single day appointees at the Department of Homeland Security work to implement the President’s policies and keep our Homeland safe.”

Harvilicz didn’t respond to questions about his DHS role. Harvilicz’s X account notes his post as DHS’ assistant secretary for cyber, infrastructure, risk and resilience policy but says he’s been detailed to the Defense Department. (Such temporary assignments are typically done in 120-day increments.)

Harvilicz was appointed to the DHS job around July, taking on a role that in the past has largely focused on shaping policy to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure, including its election systems.

But current and former DHS officials say Harvilicz and his team have transformed their functions to become more hands-on. They’ve been deeply engaged with facilitating multiple administration data-gathering efforts aimed at scouring voter rolls for noncitizens, the officials said. ProPublica has reported on one such effort, which has led to hundreds of citizens being incorrectly flagged as potential noncitizens.

Harvilicz’s team includes Heather Honey, the deputy assistant secretary of election integrity. ProPublica has reported that Honey was previously a leader in the Election Integrity Network, a conservative group that has challenged the legitimacy of American election systems. Honey worked closely with Cleta Mitchell, the network’s leader, who played a prominent role in helping Trump try to overturn his 2020 loss.

[VID]

Also reporting directly to Harvilicz is Samantha Anderson,a data specialist whopreviously worked to elect Trump through the advocacy arm of the America First Policy Institute, a think tank closely associated with the president.

Multiple officials and elections experts said they were worried that Harvilicz and Honey would have prominent parts in assessing and describing the cybersecurity of the coming election, both to the public and to administration leaders. They also expressed concern that if Trump again wanted to get control of voting machines after the election, perhaps if Republicans lose seats in the midterms, that Harvilicz is ideally positioned to help them do so.

“It would be super easy for them to get the voting machines,” a current DHS official said, adding they can “describe it as they want, if they don’t like the results.”

Harvilicz co-founded Tranquility AI, which has developed an artificial intelligence tool for law enforcement, with Penrose, and they are listed on its 2025 patents as developing its systems together.

Penrose, a former intelligence officer, played a leading role in the campaign to help Trump in his failed bid to overturn the 2020 election, ProPublica has reported. Penrose also participated in multiple attempts to clandestinely seize voting machines, including in Michigan, where prosecutors accused him of breaking into some of the machines. (Penrose wasn’t charged in the case.) He appeared to be an unindicted co-conspirator in the failed Georgia prosecution in which Trump was accused of conspiring to overturn the election results, according to The Washington Post.

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an 3 26

Yet another Republican lawmaker is refusing to seek reelection in 2026, when President Donald Trump’s second term experiences its likely-costly midterm elections.

Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) told reporters on Wednesday that he will not seek reelection, saying in a statement that “after prayer, reflection, and many long conversations, I have decided that I will not seek reelection in 2026. I will complete this term fully committed to my work in Washington, DC, and then step away from elected office.”

He added, “I began this political journey over six years ago with a simple question: Can I do more to advocate for our at-risk children? That question led me into public service, with a focused passion on education where the cancer of hopelessness and training for ‘social advocacy’ has taken hold in too many of our public schools.”

Owens, who has served in the House since 2021, joins a total of 53 US House members and nine US senators who have announced they will not seek reelection this year. Of this group, 37 of the retiring lawmakers are Republicans. Also seeing the writing on the wall, the conservative magazine The Bulwark argued last month that voters are connecting higher prices with Trump’s unpopular tariffs.

“Voters are rarely able to connect policy to outcomes, but they have done so in the case of tariffs,” wrote The Bulwark’s Mona Charen. “Back in 2024, Americans were about equally divided on the question of trade, with some favoring higher tariffs and roughly similar numbers opting for lower tariffs. Experience has changed their views.”

Robert Kagan, a conservative historian with an extensive history writing about foreign policy, warned CNN’s Christiane Amanpour last month that Trump is planning on rigging the midterms because his Republican Party is likely to do poorly in them.

“The U.S. Congress — both parties — are unwilling to really fight Trump,” Kagan told Amanpour, later continuing that “I am worried, as I have said and others have been pointing out, about whether we will even have free and fair elections in 2026, let alone in 2028. I think Trump has a plan to disrupt those elections, and I don't think he's willing to allow Democrats to take control of one or both houses as could happen in a free election.”

White House spokeswoman Abigail T. Jackson told AlterNet in response to these criticisms that the administration is only trying to root out voter fraud.

“President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered noncitizen voters,” Jackson told AlterNet. “The President has also urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting. Noncitizen voting is a crime. Anyone breaking the law will be held accountable.”

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an 3 26

As allies of President Donald Trump are rumored to be urging him to issue an executive order seizing control of elections ahead of the midterm elections, Arizona’s top attorney and election administrator both say doing so would be blatantly unconstitutional and unlikely to happen.

“No president has the constitutional authority to ‘take control’ of elections,” Attorney General Kris Mayes told the Arizona Mirror in a statement. “Elections in this country are administered by states. It is a deliberate feature of our constitutional system designed to prevent the federal government from seizing power over how Americans choose their leaders.”

On Friday, the Washington Post reported that a proposed executive order, written and supported by conspiracy theorists, has been passed around the White House with the goal of Trump formally issuing it. It would declare an emergency over alleged Chinese interference in the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden, and use that as the basis to wrest control of elections from states and make sweeping changes to how Americans register to vote and cast their ballots, and how those votes are then counted.

Mayes said the entire exercise is based on fanciful claims of election fraud that are not backed by any evidence, many of which were rejected by the courts in 2020.

“Arizona’s 2020 election results were investigated, audited, litigated, and certified, even by members of the president’s own party,” Mayes added. “There is nothing to relitigate, and debunked conspiracy theories are not a legal basis for seizing control of American elections.”

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said in a statement to the Mirror that his main concern is focusing on elections in Arizona, not Trump’s actions.

“I don’t have time to be distracted by noise from Washington DC. IF a new (executive order) is forthcoming, and it purports to violate the Constitution like the last one, we will challenge it in Court,” Fontes said. “For now, local and state elections officials in Arizona will stay focused on the task at hand: continuing to provide high quality elections for our voters, as we’ve done for decades.”

The draft executive order that is being shopped to the Trump administration was published by Democracy Docket, a digital news site about elections, and is said to be written by Peter Ticktin, a Trump ally and Florida-based lawyer who represents former Mesa County clerk and election denier Tina Peters.

When asked about the order by reporters on Friday morning, Trump said he had “never heard of it.”

The proposed executive order, an earlier version of which was published in April 2025 by a group led by Trump ally and election denier Cleta Mitchell, includes a number of proposals that have been on the wishlists of election conspiracy theorists for years.

It would require every voter to re-register in 2026; eliminate the use of ballot tabulation machines and force every ballot to be counted by hand; allow anyone to challenge the eligibility of voters; require all races be counted by midnight on Election Day; and create a national voter registration database.

The proposal also would have each ballot require a unique identifier, and each voter would need a unique PIN, which some have noted would erase the secret ballot requirement by Arizona law.

“First Trump said he’d impose new voting rules ‘whether approved by Congress or not’ and now extremists are pushing him to use emergency powers to control our elections,” U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly said on X. “That’s not how things work in our country, and a federal takeover of our elections violates our Constitution and the law. The American people will not stand by and let their voting rights be undermined.”

Trump and his allies have been pushing for the passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, more commonly known as the SAVE Act, with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem making a stop in Arizona to stump for it and fueling more baseless election conspiracy theories along the way.

She called Arizona’s elections an “absolute disaster” and made the false claim that there is widespread voter fraud by illegal immigrants. But when pressed by reporters to provide examples, Noem could not provide even a single one.

The proposed executive order is based around many of those baseless conspiracy theories, alluding to interference by foreign actors in machines and claims of widespread noncitizen voting, both of which have been found to be baseless.

The SAVE Act has passed out of the U.S. House of Representatives but faces a roadblock in the U.S. Senate because the GOP majority doesn’t have enough support to get around the filibuster. Trump has said that if it does not pass, he would look for alternative ways to enact it.

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AN 2 26

Donald Trump is losing support from almost every voting bloc there is as his second term wears on, but according to a new analysis from Thomas Edsall, the richest Americans are sticking by him. These "superrich" donors are now fueling a "Republican financial juggernaut," and they want favors in return.

"Determined to get a piece of the action, the very wealthy are lining up in droves," Edsall wrote in his latest New York Times column. "Despite Trump’s having lost ground in almost every demographic during his second term, one group stands firmly in the president’s camp: the superrich who have their wallets open."

These superrich voters, Edsall explained, are standing by with Trump thanks to his economic policies, which "have reinforced and, in some cases, intensified trends toward the increasing concentration of wealth and income at the highest levels." Citing data from the Federal Reserve, he noted that by the third quarter of last year — months into Trump's second term and right around the time he signed the "One Big Beautiful Bill" — the richest 0.1 percent's share of all the wealth in the U.S. had grown to 14.4 percent, up from 8.6 percent in 1989, while the share for the rest of the richest 1 percent grew to 17.3 from 14.2 percent.

Edsall further broke down how these superrich voters made a striking shift towards overt support for Republicans in the 2024 election. In years prior, the split between donations they made to Republicans and Democrats was closer to even, though the GOP held the edge. Citing data from the Washington Post, Edsall demonstrated just how much they made a rightward shift in 2024.

"Then that pattern abruptly shifted," Edsalld wrote. "Contributions by the very rich to Republicans grew from roughly $300 million in 2022 to just under a billion in 2024, while donations to Democrats fell from roughly $300 million to less than $200 million."

The Post's original report noted that "more than 80 percent of the federal campaign spending by the 100 wealthiest Americans in 2024 went to Republicans." Reporting from OpenSecrets found that one-time Trump ally Elon Musk was the biggest contributor that year, donating nearly $300 million.

By way of contributions to Trump's MAGA Inc. super PAC, the wealthy have continued to flood Trump with more money. The committee currently boasts over $300 million in cash-on-hand, with 90 percent of that amount coming in donations over $1 million. Edsall cited another report from the New York Times earlier this month, which found that the GOP overall has "an unheard-of edge of more than $550 million" over Democrats.

"The wealthy have created what amounts to a Republican financial juggernaut," Edsall wrote.

That level of fundraising around a president like Trump, who has no legal path to running for a third term, seems odd on the surface. However, Edsall observed, these donors are backing Trump in exchange for preferential treatment, including regulatory changes and investments, and favors, such as pardons.

"Evidence of the pervasive corruption is endemic, in the presidential pardons to donors and the well connected, in the regulatory favoritism found at key agencies, in the flow of special interest and foreign investments into the Trump family’s cryptocurrencybusinesses."

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AN 2 26

OMFG VOTER SUPPRESS ICE

Former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer is sounding the alarm.

Speaking to CNN on Thursday, Richer said that if SB 1570 becomes law, it "would prove a significant disruption."

The law would require federal immigration officials to be on hand at every polling location in the state during the 2026 election. It would also require local officials to arrange for ICE agents to be present, reported AZFamily.com. It does promise that federal officials "shall not interfere with the casting or depositing of ballots except as otherwise authorized by law" and cannot "question, detain or arrest a voter solely for the purpose of determining voter eligibility, except as otherwise allowed under state or federal law."

"And it doesn't even really make sense because ICE, as I understand it, is about naturalization, about whether or not you're a United States citizen, but you don't have to bring proof of citizenship when you show up to vote," said Richer.

Republicans at the federal level have attempted to change that, too, however. The SAVE America Act, which stands for Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) America Act. It's a law that the Brennan Center for Justice has called “the most restrictive voting bill ever.”

The new successor claimed that they reviewed 60,000 registered voters in Arizona and found 137 were not U.S. citizens and 60 had voted in previous elections.

Richer said it's important to understand the context. Maricopa County has about 2.6 million registered voters in it. So, he wanted to know more to understand what the new recorder was referencing.

"Every year, we would review our voter rolls, and we would make sure that there were no irregularities and we would forward any cases that deserve more investigation to the county attorney's office and to the attorney general," Richer said.

That has changed, however, he noted.

"Since I left office ... the federal government has unrolled its saved database that purports to allow states to upload their voter registration rolls to see if there are any non-citizens," he explained. "The problem with that, as reported by ProPublica in recent weeks, is that it returns quite a few false positives."

He said that while it can lead to further investigation, "registrants should not be taken off of the rolls simply because they are pinged by the database, and I trust that the county recorder's office under my successor will do further investigation on those voters."

CNN host Boris Sanchez noted that the federal government is also seeking driver's license information, partial Social Security numbers, and other data to connect to voter databases. Sanchez asked Richer what the federal government wanted with that data.

By and large, I think the federal government has sued, now, about 28 states. States are resisting because they feel that it violates both state law and federal law to give up their entire voter registration databases, which include personal identifying information like your Social Security number or your driver's license.

He noted that in all of those cases, so far, the federal government has lost.

"I don't think it's an appropriate request from the federal government. I am, however, sympathetic to wanting to do list maintenance. I'm sympathetic to wanting to make sure that non-citizens aren't participating in our elections," Richer added.

Richer commented that, given the governor of Arizona is the former secretary of state, she is well-informed on voting rights. If SB 1570 passes the legislature, he doesn't believe she will sign it. It's unclear whether there are the votes to override such a veto.

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AN 2 26

Republicans on social media are admitting the truth behind Democratic accusations about the SAVE Act — namely, that they want to pass the SAVE Act requiring proof of citizenship and photo ID to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

“The writing on the wall,” tweeted Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida in a message in which Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is tagged. Luna attached a flowchart which showed two paths from “Gain majority”: The first, in which the SAVE Act is not saved, equals “lose majority,” “resist other team’s agenda” and needing to fundraise “back to gain majority.”

The flowchart also shows, as an alternative if the SAVE Act fails, is a “one-party state.” This, perhaps not coincidentally, is what historians and political scientists observe could occur to Republicans’ advantage if Trump nationalizes the 2026 midterms. Because Americans with low incomes, disabilities and other disadvantages often struggle to obtain citizenship documents and photo ID despite being legitimate citizens and voters, scholars are concerned the SAVE Act would disproportionately target Democratic constituencies.

Conservative commentator Tomi Lahren, who once said “I don’t care if someone is a liberal, conservative, an atheist, or whatever: don’t be the mean girl,” tweeted “Yep” in response to Luna’s flowchart post to Thune. In a similar spirit, conservative activist Scott Presler posted on Twitter/X and told Thune that “if you do not bring the SAVE America Act to the Senate floor and ultimately pass the bill into law, Republicans will lose both the House and Senate this November.” After threatening that Republicans will not vote unless the SAVE Act is passed, Presler ordered Thune to “either wield power and be remembered as a hero in the majority or lose it all with a democrat takeover as the minority.”

According to one veteran political journalist, this is Republicans “quiet part out loud.”

“The quiet part out loud,” tweeted New York Times congressional correspondent Annie Karni on Wednesday morning while sharing Luna’s flowchart. “Fail to pass Save Act -> lose majority.”

In a similar vein as Karni, Politico columnist Jonathan Martin pointed out in regard to Presler’s tweet that there were “14K likes for arguing Repubs will lose midterms if they don’t pass a voter ID and citizenship bill. Not, ya know, bc the president is hovering at or below 40% and Dems have a massive off-year turnout advantage in this era.”

He concluded, “Preposterous, sure, but is only gonna put more pressure on Sen Rs bc many of their voters are swallowing this nonsense.”

Martin posted his tweet on Tuesday at 9:18 PM Eastern Time. As of the time of this writing, at 1:10 PM ET on the following Wednesday (roughly 16 hours later), it has 54K likes.

In addition to political journalists, some of Trump’s fellow Republicans are alarmed that the president is planning on stealing the upcoming midterm elections.

“This is the first instance in which I could begin to believe that something truly spectacular is going to happen in which our 2026 midterm elections are not administered like past elections have been,” Stephen Richer, a former Republican county recorder of Maricopa County when Trump attempted to steal the 2020 election, recently told The Atlantic’s David Frum.

“I am worried, as I have said and others have been pointing out, about whether we will even have free and fair elections in 2026, let alone in 2028,” conservative historian Robert Kagan recently told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “I think Trump has a plan to disrupt those elections, and I don't think he's willing to allow Democrats to take control of one or both houses as could happen in a free election.”

Former Republican consultant and Pulitzer Prize winner George F. Will summed up Trump’s midterm schemes by comparing them to his failed efforts to prove the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“Trump’s batting average?” Will wrote “.016. In Arizona, the most exhaustively scrutinized state, a private firm selected by Trump’s advocates confirmed Trump’s loss, finding 99 additional Biden votes and 261 fewer Trump votes.” As such Will wrote of Trump, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

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The United States is facing a major test of American democracy as experts warn that the Trump administration is dragging the nation into “some form of autocracy,” NPR reports.

The U.S. has already crossed the threshold and become an “electoral autocracy,” Staffan I. Lindberg, the director of Sweden’s V-Dem Institute, told NPR.

“I would argue that the United States in 2025-26 has slid into a mild form of competitive authoritarianism,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University and co-author of How Democracies Die. “I think it’s reversible, but this is authoritarianism.”

“Under competitive authoritarianism,” NPR explained, “countries still hold elections, but the ruling party uses various tactics — attacking the press, disenfranchising voters, weaponizing the justice system and threatening critics — to tilt the electoral playing field in its favor.”

Levitsky cited several critical points in September as examples, including the Trump administration’s threat against ABC parent company Disney following host Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks on the killing of Charlie Kirk.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), said.

He also cited Trump’s proposal to use American cities as “training grounds” for troops.

“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military,” Trump said, as the Military Times reported.

The president “told the commanders that defending the homeland was the military’s ‘most important priority’ and suggested the leaders in attendance could be tasked with assisting federal law enforcement interventions against an ‘invasion from within’ Democratic-led cities, such as Chicago and New York City.”

“No different than a foreign enemy,” Trump said, “but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms.”

Levitsky, NPR reported, “said this is the kind of language dictators in South America used in the 1970s — leaders like Augusto Pinochet in Chile.”

NPR notes that the “next big test” could come during the midterms.

Kim Scheppele, a Princeton University sociologist who has studied the authoritarian tactics of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, warned that in 2014 Orbán’s government “disenfranchised almost all the Hungarians in the U.K., most of whom were oppositional to Orbán,”

Dartmouth College professor of government Brendan Nyhan warned, “The way Election Day works in this country, there are no do-overs.”

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It's become accepted religion on MS-NOW political talk broadcasts – and in Democratic circles in and out of Congress — that one way or another, Donald Trump is actively aiming to disrupt the November elections.

The tools for disruption vary from Trump attempts to tilt the balloting rules orpush for gerrymandered districts to full-blown deployment of armed Homeland Security armies around voting precincts in at least 15 jurisdictions, picking up from Trump's own projections about where he intuits widespread voter fraud without a shred of evidence to persuade, say, a judge.

To a certain extent, then, Trump already has proved successful in at once annoying and frightening Americans with his ever-present, evidence-free, authoritarian push.

It is Trump, of course, who is pushing this argument by word and deed. Rather than accept that the slice of voters who decide between wins and losses is a relatively small, fickle group that drifts back and forth between parties, Trump cannot stomach a loss or even the suggestion that his every act is not adored by friend and foe alike. And so, we have White House trumpeting about "nationalizing" elections that are Constitutionally assigned to states, a public seizure of 2020 ballots in Atlanta, involvement of officials who have nothing to do with elections in precincts where Trump has suffered losses, redrawing of districts, and a so-far failing campaign to grab every state's voting rolls for Trump's own review.

It is Trump who is making clear that he wants to interfere and control elections before voting, in the actual submission of ballots, and, naturally, with the counting of votes. The goal in November is to retain majorities in both houses of Congress and the incessant questioning, oversight activities and possibilities of impeachment that could follow a return of a Democratic majority in even one house.

What Evidence?

Much as Fox, Newsmax and other outlets on the right regularly promote deportation efforts and the need to preserve voting from undue, "fraudulent" voting by immigrants, the MS-NOW crowd of regulars sees a different reality in Trump's dedicated march to undercut voting by making the process more difficult and results always questionable.

Both sides repeat their vents over election tactics endlessly, to the exclusion of other public issues also in contention.

The difference, of course, is that the MS-NOW pundits base their thinking on plethora of actions as well as statements that offer warning signs, on scores of court decisions that have found the "fraud" and "rigging" of elections arguments to be without merit, and on current laws in states that already bar voting by non-citizens and voter registration processes in most states that require showing various documents to be eligible to vote even in local elections.

The "pro-democracy" pundits are reacting to welcomed pressure on the White House coming from Steve Bannon, among others within MAGA, to do anything, including deploying military troops or paramilitary border police to surround polls, discourage voting even in person, and, naturally to eliminate such efforts as mail ballots that encourage more voting, not less.

This weekend, Trump promised on social media that he would issue an executive order to require voters to show identification in the midterm elections even if Congress does not do so. Trump posted, "There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!"

Trump has already attempted to use an executive order to alter voting laws last March, but in January, a federal judge threw it out, finding that the president does not have the authority to unilaterally alter election procedures.

Trump is stumping for something called The SAVE Act in Congress, which would require voters to show passport or other documents each time they vote – and would require all states to turnover state voter rolls loaded with personal information to Trump's government, presumably for unspecified checks against citizenship records. For anyone who has worked with data, name checks are the worst possible way to match records because of name or initial changes, spellings, relocations among jurisdictions. Voter rolls do not list who actually voted, just who once registered.

Like most legislation, there is some kernel that makes sense, but partisan disagreement about its effects, about how it would be used, and the broader un-Constitutionality of putting the feds in charge of activity directly assigned to states.

A Campaign Against Voting

Taken together, Trump's activities towards elections past and present show a consistent line: He wants to sow distrust for the results. On some level, it makes no sense. He supported the outcome of the same voting techniques and procedures when he won in 2016 and 2024, but not 2020 – or apparently in the looming November results.

For those who followed the investigations of activities ending in the Jan. 6, 2021, efforts to remain in office despite election results, it feels all too familiar. These are the same drumbeats that Special Counsel Jack Smith was prepared to prosecute as illegal conspiracy to overturn election law.

Trump does not help himself in these matters when, as over the weekend, he takes his tales of election woe to a military base in North Carolina, in a partisan address to Fort Bragg soldiers in blatant violation of military tradition, if not law. Trump does not help his credibility by sending Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence to participate in a search warrant seizure of ballots in Atlanta, or dispatching Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem to Arizona over securing voter rolls. Rather, those come across to the public as sending willing co-conspirators in what seem warning signals that this federal government will intervene in state elections.

Here was Noem in an Arizona interview: "When it gets to Election Day, we've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country." Regardless of party, how are we not supposed to take this as between inappropriate and dangerous?

What most ails our voting in this country is that its residents don't vote. A 60 percent turnout is considered high. Only Trump sees widespread fraud – especially when the same exact ballot elects those Republicans in Congress or state legislatures who must carry out Trump's assault on voting focused on minority precincts in states whose outcomes he did not like.

What most ails our Trump administration about voting is that it seeks to depress the vote, and uses the hammer of immigration as a supposed explanation for what seems genuinely widespread unhappiness with most of Trump's policies about tariffs and prices, access to health care and childcare, a vastly growing gap between rich and poor, the abuse of the Justice Department and FBI towards partisan political ends, its opposition to climate concerns and the promotion of self-aggrandizing schemes for Trump's own family, friends and backers, and the attack on democracy itself.

Watch for the actions as well as bluster of Truth Social posts.

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Democrats are poised to take back at least one chamber of Congress after this November's midterm elections according to the latest polls. But Republicans are hoping their significant fundraising advantage can give them a critical edge this fall.

That's according to a Tuesday article by the New York Times' Shane Goldmacher and Theodore Schleifer, who reported that the GOP is going into the midterm race with a cash haul significantly larger than the opposition. According to the Times, President Donald Trump's main super PAC is sitting in more than $304 million, and other well-funded super PACs affiliated with the cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence are expected to write big checks to Republicans this cycle.

Goldmacher and Schleifer also found that between Republicans' three main campaign arms, along with the the two GOP super PACs aligned with House and Senate Republicans, the majority party is heading into the midterms "with more than double the cash of the equivalent Democratic groups." GOP groups have a combined $320 million to spend, while Democratic-affiliated super PACs have just $137.2 million between them.

"Any Democrat who isn’t concerned isn’t serious," American Bridge super PAC co-founder Bradley Beychok told the Times. "Yes, Democrats have momentum on our side and a wide opportunity map, but we have a glaring disadvantage in overall money."

The Times additionally reported that despite his previous falling out with Trump and brief flirtations with starting a third party, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has donated "tens of millions of dollars" to Republicans in recent months. Musk also made an appearance at Mar-a-Lago to attend the wedding of a Trump staffer. All told, Republicans have more than $550 million to enter the 2026 cycle when counting Trump's super PAC and a smattering of other federal campaign accounts.

"Donald Trump has 99 problems going into the midterms," Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson said. "But money ain't one."

A money advantage doesn't necessary guarantee electoral success. In 2024, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris raised a whopping $2 billion while Trump and the Republican National Committee brought in just $1.2 billion. Harris still ended up losing all seven swing states, in addition to the national popular vote.

And despite the disparity in party fundraising, individual Democratic candidates have been vastly out-raising their Republican opponents in a few marquee races. The Times reported that in the Alaska, Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio Senate races, Democrats Mary Peltola, Jon Ossoff, Roy Cooper and Sherrod Brown, respectively, are "running fund-raising laps around Republicans, driven mostly by liberal enthusiasm and small online donations," per the *Times.

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President Trump and his Republican Party are in danger of losing one or both houses of Congress during the upcoming midterm elections, according to NPR — and there is more than one reason why this is the case.

NPR points to five specific variables that suggest Trump and the Republicans will suffer significant losses in November. Trump’s approval rating is currently at 39% and has remained below 40% since November, even though parties whose presidents have less than 50% approval ratings lose an average of 32 House seats during midterm elections. On average, the president’s party has lost 27 House seats and four Senate seats since World War II. Because of Trump’s unpopular economic, immigration and foreign policies, he is polling poorly among key groups that he won during the 2024 election, including independents, young voters and Latinos.

Honing in on the economy, NPR pointed out as its second observation that 54% of Americans feel Trump should prioritize lowering prices and only 36% approve of his handling of the economy. Almost three out of four voters (72%) say his economy has been either fair or poor, while roughly three out of eight (38%) say they believe conditions will worsen. More than half (52%) say Trump’s policies have made things worse.

NPR’s third point is that Democrats have recently overperformed in special elections, including a recent Texas State Senate race held in a district that Trump won by 17 points in 2024 but was won by the Democratic candidate by 14 points, indicating a 31-point swing. Overall Democrats have overperformed their 2024 margins by an average of nearly 16 points in the various congressional, gubernatorial and special elections that have occurred during Trump’s second term.

Making matters more ominous for Republicans, NPR’s observes as its fourth point that 30 Republican House members are retiring this cycle compared to only 21, both reflecting on Republicans’ feelings of vulnerability and because — with only a four-vote margin in the current House — the nine-vote deficit eliminates House Republicans’ potential incumbency advantage.

Finally, Democrats currently hold a roughly 5-point advantage over Republicans when voters are asked which party they want to control Congress, a significant shift from when Republicans led on this question last year.

Further fleshing out Republicans’ midterms dilemma, Press Pass author and Bulwark congressional correspondent Joe Perdicone explained that Trump’s dominance over the Republican-controlled Congress has actually hindered individual members’ ability to serve their constituents’ local needs.

“Mike Johnson does everything that Trump says and he doesn't allow anything that Trump won't allow. And, so, the House doesn't get to do anything,” Perticone said. “You don't get to prioritize your little pet projects. A lot of these members of Congress, they like to do things that are very specific to their interests. But when you have this paralyzed floor, you have a very thin majority. So they're not having fun right now and they know it's only going to get worse when they're in the minority. So, you know, go find a job elsewhere. Go get rich lobbying.”

Many of Trump’s critics worry that, in anticipation of losing the midterm elections and facing potential impeachment, he will try to rig them in his favor. Trump has lent credibility to these concerns by baselessly claiming the 2026 midterm elections will be rife with fraud and that he therefore may need to send ICE to monitor them. The White House even recently announced a position of FBI Election Executive, a seemingly-new position they claim is not an original creation.

To explain Trump’s actions, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday that there is “horrible corruption on elections — and the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should get involved.”

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Donald Trump is planning to do everything he can to subvert the 2026 midterms and prevent Democratic victories, but according to conservative commentator David French, there is a new bill in Congress that stands a chance of stopping his quest for "permanent power."

Writing for the New York Times Thursday morning, French reiterated his past warning that voters should not expect the midterms to be "free or fair" under Trump's watch. Indeed, he noted that the recent FBI raid on an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, and Trump's assertion on a right-wing podcast that election control ought to be "nationalized" as clear evidence of Trump's intentions.

"President Trump has made it clear — very clear — that he is set to accept only one outcome: MAGA wins," French wrote. "Any other outcome is proof that the Democrats cheated."

French said that while anything that might properly stop Trump's election plans "feels impossible," he highlighted a portion of the U.S. legal code, 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, which "gives you the right to sue for damages when state or local government officials deprive you of 'any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws,'" including your voting rights. While federal officials like Trump and his allies are immune from being targeted by this law, there is a bill currently before Congress that aims to change this.

"In November, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representatives Hank Johnson and Jamie Raskin reintroduced a bill called the Bivens Act," French explained. "It’s remarkably simple. It would amend Section 1983 by stating that officials “of the United States” can be held liable on the same basis as officials of any state. That’s it. That’s the bill. And it’s worth shutting down the Department of Homeland Security to get it passed."

He continued: "If the bill passes and Trump signs it, he would be able to pardon his cronies if they commit federal crimes, but not relieve them from potentially immense civil liability. Money judgments don’t present the same deterrent as prison time, but they’re consequential nonetheless... Yes, a corrupt president may pardon the crooks and cronies who act on his behalf, but a modest change in the law could give them pause. Violating civil rights should carry a profound cost, and the message to the Trump administration should be simple and clear: Protect the integrity of the election, or we will make you pay."

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With President Donald Trump suffering from weak approval ratings in countless recent polls and Democrats having performed well in a series of late 2025 and early 2026 elections, Democratic strategists are feeling cautiously optimistic about their prospects in this year's midterms. A Texas State Senate special election on Saturday, January 31 in the Ft. Word suburbs was especially encouraging for them: Democrat Taylor Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss by 14 percent in a district that Trump won by 18 percent in 2024.

But progressive legal scholar Elie Mystal, in an article published by The Nation on February 5, warns that Trump and his allies will do everything possible to rig the midterms against Democrats. And the attorney fears that Trump opponents aren't doing enough to fight back.

"To ignore the threat posed by Trump, to pretend like everything is going to be OK, to assume that upstanding members of the courts will rise to prevent the theft of the election is to stick your head in the sand," Mystal emphasizes. "Trump and the Republicans have no intention of letting the upcoming midterms — in which Republicans are predicted to lose control of the House — proceed fairly. They're attacking the election through legislative, law-enforcement, and political means."

Mystal describes a variety of MAGA tactics.

"Republicans in the House have already passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act)," the legal expert notes. "The bill radically reshapes the voter registration process by essentially repealing the Motor Voter Act. Instead of allowing people to register with a driver's license, the SAVE Act requires them to show additional identification, like a passport or a birth certificate, in order to register…. The SAVE Act isn't even the most dangerous thing Republicans in Congress have cooked up. That dubious honor belongs to the Make Elections Great Again Act (MEGA Act), so named because these people are obviously in a cult."

Mystal continues, "The MEGA Act includes all of the same requirements to register to vote as the SAVE Act, but also, requires these new forms of identification to be shown by voters when they try to cast their ballots…. All of this would be bad enough, but Republicans aren't just hoping for legislation that will allow them to suppress the vote in 2026, they're also putting in place the legal ability to steal the votes that get through these gauntlets. Last week, the FBI raided the Fulton County elections operations center, which covers Atlanta, looking for 2020 ballots…. If the FBI can seize old, 2020 ballots in the name of fishing for 'election fraud,' it's not hard to imagine them seizing ballots and voting machines trying to stop 'fraud' in 2026. Attorney General Pam Bondi has also appointed, essentially, a 'special counsel,' Thomas Albus, and given him the authority to seize ballots."

Mystal points out that Steve Bannon, host of the "War Room" vodcast and former White House chief strategist in the first Trump Administration, is flat-out calling for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to "surround the polls come November."

"Who knows what kind of ICE presence we'’ll see on Election Day?," Mystal warns. "Who knows how much violence they'll use to keep people from voting? But you'd be a rank fool to think the answers to those questions are 'nothing' and 'none.'"

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AN 2 26 LOUDERMILK

Mass exodus of Republicans continues as 30th GOP rep announces retirement from Congress

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1 26 GEORGIA BALLOT GRAB TULSI

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AN 2 26

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Attorney General Pam Bondi set off a furor when she appeared to link the aggressive immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota to the state’s refusal to share its voter rolls with the Trump administration. The FBI searched a Fulton County, Georgia, election office, apparently as part of a criminal investigation into the 2020 election. Congressional Republicans dropped big new legislation to overhaul election administration.

Against that backdrop, secretaries of state from around the country gathered in a hotel ballroom in Washington, D.C., many expressing growing unease about the implications of the Trump administration’s actions and rhetoric around the 2026 elections they’re responsible for administering in November.

Multiple Trump administration officials were scheduled to address the secretaries’ conference at various points, but the plans kept shifting. Earlier this week, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Secretaries of State said Bondi — whose Justice Department has so far sued 23 states and Washington, D.C., for access to their voter rolls — and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would potentially be added to the schedule. Later, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was added to the list of expected officials, less than 48 hours after she appeared at the FBI search in Fulton County.

It wasn’t clear what they were planning to say, and some Democratic secretaries said they planned to skip the remarks.

But after a crowd of secretaries of state, their staff, consultants, vendors, and media members filled the ballroom Friday afternoon, with four chairs set up on the dais, Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, a Republican, announced that the chairs would stay empty.

“Unfortunately, it appears that we will no longer be having a 3 o’clock session,” Watson said, to rueful chuckles.

It wasn’t the only shift.

An early agenda had called for a Thursday panel with two White House officials, as well as Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, and Heather Honey, the deputy assistant secretary for election integrity for the Department of Homeland Security. Ultimately, only one official, Jared Borg of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, spoke. Borg opened by outlining the administration’s efforts to overhaul a federal database used by many states to verify voter citizenship, as well as ongoing consultations with secretaries of state on that and related initiatives.

Election officials from both political parties had pointed questions.

Referring to comments from Justice Department officials about states’ maintenance of voter rolls, Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican and the state’s chief election officer, said it is “problematic to publicly claim that secretaries of state are not doing our jobs and that the federal government has to do it for us.” Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas, a Democrat, asked why the administration wasn’t answering their questions about its election initiatives.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, asked pointedly how the Trump administration squared his executive order on elections with the fact that the Constitution gives authority over elections to the states and Congress. Borg said the question would be better directed to Bondi or Noem the next day.

But as it turned out, Bellows didn’t get the chance, and she wasn’t happy about it. After Watson announced the session wouldn’t happen, a small group of Democratic secretaries of state spoke to the press. “Noem, Bondi, and Gabbard are cowards for not showing up today and answering the questions from election officials from across the country about this administration’s abuses of power,” Bellows said, while secretaries of state from Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Vermont looked on.

Their frustrations with the Trump administration were clear. But the Democratic secretaries ended on a more upbeat note: emphasizing that NASS is still a bipartisan organization, and that their Republican colleagues are just as committed to administering a fair 2026 election as they are.

“Following the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law,” Thomas said, “is not a partisan issue.”

*Carrie Levine is Votebeat’s editor-in-chief and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Carrie atclevine@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

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RWW

02/02/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

President Donald Trump called into the podcast of his former Deputy FBI Director, Dan Bongino, and said that Republicans should “nationalize” the voting process, especially in fifteen “crooked” states, while insisting that undocumented immigrants are voting in America.

During his Monday program, Bongino lashed out at the people he perceived as his enemies while he was working for the FBI.

Martin will no longer head the Justice Department task force that pushed investigations into Trump’s foes.

“This overperformance is a warning sign to Republicans across the country.”

“Something’s broken. The motherboard’s fried. We’re short-circuiting somewhere.”

The Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell report over the weekend on what it dubbed an “unprecedented” deal between a foreign country and an incoming U.S. president, in this case, the United Arab Emirates and Donald Trump.

His followers are drifting toward Nick Fuentes, his onetime nemesis.

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Earlier this month, President Donald Trump floated the idea of canceling the 2026 midterm elections, drawing widespread attention and concern even as White House officials later dismissed the remarks as facetious.

*This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.]

But election experts consistently agree that Trump has neither the legal authority nor the practical ability to cancel elections. And state and local election officials consistently say they will carry out the elections they’re legally required to run.

The election system is under real strain, and bad-faith efforts to undermine it are serious. But after talking with local election officials, lawyers, and administrators across the country, I don’t see evidence that upcoming elections are at realistic risk of not happening at all. Elections happen because thousands of local officials follow state and local law that mandates them — and history shows they’ve done so before, even under immense pressure. The greater danger isn’t no election, but one that’s chaotic, unfairly challenged, or deliberately cast as illegitimate after the fact.

Stephen Richer, the Republican former recorder in Maricopa County, Arizona, said the idea that a president could simply halt or meaningfully cancel an election misunderstands how elections function on the ground. The system, he said, is “made up of so many disparate actors” — thousands of local officials, courts, vendors, and administrators operating under different authorities and timelines. Even if there were a coordinated attempt to get these people not to go through with the election, “you’ve got to figure at least half of those people aren’t big fans of the president, and many of the rest are on autopilot regardless of what they think of the president.”

Some election processes are fixed by law and timing. Military and overseas ballots, for example, must be sent on a specific schedule — a deadline Richer described as “an immutable deadline, like gravity.” Any attempt to disrupt that selectively would quickly become obvious. “How absurd would it be that one county got ballots and the next one didn’t?” he said, predicting “a gazillion lawsuits” and court orders compelling officials to move forward.

Richer also pointed to the scale of U.S. election administration: more than 9,000 jurisdictions and more than 90,000 polling locations nationwide. “You are not going around and shutting those down,” he said. He noted that even voter-intimidation efforts would face immediate legal challenges and injunctions, while plenty of voters would have cast ballots via other means (e.g., early or mail voting) anyway.

That assessment is echoed by David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, who speaks regularly with local election officials. (When we spoke, he was driving to a conference for Colorado election officials — and had just come from a conference of 300 officials in Texas.) Becker said nearly 1,500 local officials across 47 states have participated in his monthly informational sessions, which he’s held since Trump put out his executive order last March, and none of them have suggested canceling the election or violating state law.

“Every single one of them is committed to putting on the best election they possibly can,” Becker said. Even under pressure, officials aren’t signaling they’ll stop. “They are getting it done,” he said, adding that if support doesn’t come from the state, “they will band together and do it themselves.”

But state election officials aren’t backing down, either. Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, says elections will proceed as planned regardless of what Trump might say. The academics and media stars gaining popularity and attention for saying otherwise are being “disingenuous” and “dangerous,” he said.

Courts have also played a critical role when local officials have threatened to overstep their authority. In 2020, even light suggestions that Trump might delay the election to accommodate COVID were met with outrage. After the 2020 election, judges made clearthat certification is not discretionary and ordered officials to follow election law and move the process forward, even amid intense political pressure.

Those same state and local laws remain in place today. Courts and election offices are also better positioned than they were four years ago, with legal strategies drafted, training in place, and judges already familiar with these arguments. Across the country, clerks and secretaries of state describe updating contingency plans, consulting attorneys, and stress-testing procedures much as they would for a natural disaster or cyberattack.

If you’re worried about what lies ahead, election officials say there are meaningful ways to respond — and that spreading fear isn’t one of them. Richer said the bigger danger now is renewed distrust of election results. That distrust makes it easier for those in power to make bad-faith attempts to twist the math after votes are cast.

His advice is straightforward: “Continue being a repository for facts and truth about election administration, and kindly and sensitively inject those into conversations that you are a part of if you hear something you know to be wrong.” He added, “Don’t be dismissive. It never works.” And, he said, “you are responsible for the false information you spread.”

Aguilar said that academic voices predicting doom “don’t understand the nuances” of state and local law and that voters should be skeptical of them. Those who want better information should go to their local and state elections offices.

There’s also a risk that continually framing elections as likely not to happen — or as already lost — could have the opposite of the intended effect, discouraging participation rather than protecting democracy. If you’re concerned about what might happen in your county, there are concrete ways to help now: sign up to be a poll worker, volunteer to help register voters, offer your business or community space as a polling location, or donate to organizations preparing to defend election laws and certification in court.

Elections don’t happen just because people assume they will. They happen because people — especially at the local level — show up and do the work.

*Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica atjhuseman@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

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an 1 26

With President Donald Trump suffering low approval ratings in poll after poll, Democratic strategists are felling increasingly optimistic about flipping the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms. And Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) Chair Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) is saying that the U.S. Senate isn't out of reach for Democrats.

But Salon's Chauncey DeVega, in an article published on January 18, warns that Democrats are facing "a coordinated effort by Trump and the anti-democracy right-wing to secure victory before a single ballot has even been counted."

As on Monday, (January 12)," DeVega explains, "the events of January 6, 2021 were a trial run. Then, he 'pressured Republican county election officials, state lawmakers, and members of Congress to find him votthe Washington Post reportedes after he lost his reelection bid. Now, he's seeking to change the rules before ballots are cast.' These strategies include 'challenging long-established democratic norms' and making 'unprecedented demands that Republican state lawmakers redraw congressional districts before the constitutionally required 10-year schedule, the prosecution of political opponents, a push to toughen voter registration rules and attempts to end the use of voting machines and mail ballots.'"

The Trump Administration, according to DeVega, "has installed election deniers and other conspiracists — believers in the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen — in key positions throughout the FBI, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and other parts of the government."

"In short," DeVega argues, "the wolves are watching the chicken coop….. Republicans and other members of the antidemocracy right-wing have repeatedly used language about the 'quality' of voters and 'voter integrity,' and they have made false allegations of widespread fraud in 'urban areas' to signal their belief that the votes of Black and brown people are not legitimate."

The Salon journalist continues, "The ultimate goal is to create a 21st-Century version of Jim and Jane Crow, where Black and brown people are made into second-class citizens…. If Trump and his MAGA forces and the broader right-wing can execute even some of their plans, the integrity and legitimacy of the country's elections will be further undermined. The result will be what political scientists describe as 'competitive authoritarianism.' In such a pseudo-democracy, the United States would be like Putin’s Russia, where there are elections but a victory by the ruling party is all but assured."

*Chauncey DeVega's full article for Salon is available at this link.

...Trump’s authoritarian chaos machine is running amok. Pro-democracy Americans — and those simply hoping for a return to normalcy — are pinning their hopes on a Democratic victory in November’s midterm elections. But that salvation will not be easy or cheap. Their hopes will face a coordinated effort by Trump and the anti-democracy right-wing to secure victory before a single ballot has even been counted.

As the Washington Post reported on Monday, the events of Jan. 6, 2021, were a trial run. Then, he “pressured Republican county election officials, state lawmakers, and members of Congress to find him votes after he lost his reelection bid. Now, he’s seeking to change the rules before ballots are cast.”

These strategies include “challenging long-established democratic norms” and making “unprecedented demands that Republican state lawmakers redraw congressional districts before the constitutionally required 10-year schedule, the prosecution of political opponents, a push to toughen voter registration rules and attempts to end the use of voting machines and mail ballots.”

The Trump administration has installed election deniers and other conspiracists in key positions throughout the FBI, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and other parts of the government. In short, the wolves are watching the chicken coop.

Trump expressed regret in a recent interview with the New York Times that he did not send in the National Guard to seize voting machines in the 2020 election, which he has falsely claimed was stolen by Democrats. He has also suggested he could deploy federal law enforcement or the National Guard to Democratic-led cities to monitor elections for so-called fraud, which would be a form of voter intimidation, and is taking steps to systematically dismantle programs designed to protect the integrity of the country’s elections from foreign and other malign actors. His administration has installed election deniers and other conspiracists — believers in the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen — in key positions throughout the FBI, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and other parts of the government.

In short, the wolves are watching the chicken coop.

The Post’s analysis did not fully account for the administration’svoter suppression and nullification campaigns targeting Black and brown people, young people, students and other likely Democratic voters. Voter suppression efforts in Georgia and other battleground states are estimated to have cost the Democrats millions of votes — and potentially the 2024 election. The right-wing justices on the Supreme Court are also poised to gut the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, which protects the voting rights of racial minorities by ensuring that voting districts are representative and not diluted by gerrymandering. Republicans and other members of the antidemocracy right-wing have repeatedly used language about the “quality” of voters and “voter integrity,” and they have made false allegations of widespread fraud in “urban areas” to signal their belief that the votes of Black and brown people are not legitimate. The ultimate goal is to create a 21st-century version of Jim and Jane Crow, where Black and brown people are made into second-class citizens.

Related

Jon Ossoff bets his 2026 race on protecting ACA subsidies

Trump and his allies have placed election deniers in key local positions onelection boards and in election offices.

Compared to Democrats, centrists and mainstream liberals, the Trumpists and the broader anti-democracy right are revolutionaries who think in decades and centuries — and build the networks, relationships, institutions and resources required to win. Democrats’ lack of vision and adherence to obsolete normal politics is one of the main reasons why they have been so ineffective in resisting the rise of authoritarianism and neofascism under Trump.

Even if Republicans somehow lose the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election, they will still seek to boobytrap the country’s governing institutions.

“This is the big one,” political scientist Barbara F. Walter explained in an essay exploring the dangers of institutional sabotage. “Watch for changes that would constrain a Democratic House even if Democrats win. Last-minute regulations that take years to undo. Executive orders are designed to be irreversible. Budget maneuvers that limit congressional power. Court appointments that lock in a conservative judiciary for decades.”

If Trump and his MAGA forces and the broader right-wing can execute even some of their plans, the integrity and legitimacy of the country’s elections will be further undermined. The result will be what political scientists describe as “competitive authoritarianism.” In such a pseudo-democracy, the United States would be like Putin’s Russia, where there are elections but a victory by the ruling party is all but assured.

As Walter warned, we can’t “assume the midterms will save us. If we’re not actively defending the democratic process right now, we may find there’s nothing left to save come November.”

Trump is a fighter. He does not retreat. Like other autocrats and authoritarians, the weaker his position, the more aggressive he becomes. In an interview with Reuters earlier this week, the president once again suggested canceling the upcoming midterm elections, saying, “It’s some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms… When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”

This was the third time this month Trump suggested that elections are unnecessary now that he holds power. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s remarks as a “joke,” insisting that “he was speaking facetiously.”

Dictators, autocrats and other malign actors strategically use humor as a type of diminutive to minimize their real intent and to distract the public and media. Trump’s public behavior, such as the plot to nullify the 2020 election and his stated desire to be a dictator, are two of many examples showing how serious his threats to end the midterms really are.

On Thursday, he threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military to quell ongoing protests and civil disturbances in Minnesota, a week after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Good, an unarmed United States citizen who was acting as an observer.

The protests and unrest in Minneapolis and other cities were sparked by Good’s killing and a broader pattern of increasingly aggressive and reckless behavior by ICE and other federal law enforcement who are waging Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

If Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act, voting and elections could be suspended or outright canceled in the blue states and other parts of the country that support the Democratic Party. Under such a scenario, he would take an action — such as ordering ICE to target Democratic-led cities in a very aggressive and provocative manner — that would create widespread protests and unrest. He could then claim that the situation is an emergency and invoke the Insurrection Act, declaring that elections cannot take place in such an environment.

We have a very long year ahead, and the American people and our democracy are going to be greatly tested.

Do we have the stamina and patience? The world will soon find out.

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AN 1 26

Election officials from around the country gathered at a conference in Virginia this week, giving us — and one another — a chance to hear what they’re thinking and worrying about as they plan for the midterm elections this year.

*This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

One of their most pressing concerns: the mail.

Updated guidance from the U.S. Postal Service about how it processes mail and when postmarks are applied has sparked widespread concern in recent weeks about whether more mail ballots will be at risk of ultimately not being counted.

Fourteen states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands count mail ballots received within a certain period after Election Day, as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. In a notice in the Federal Register that took effect Dec. 24, the Postal Service announced that it may not postmark a piece of mail on the same day that it takes possession of it, which could affect ballots dropped in mailboxes on Election Day, for instance.

Speaking at the conference, which was organized by the Election Center, a nonprofit association of election officials, U.S. Postmaster General David Steiner acknowledged the new regulation had sparked “a lot of confusion,” and said it was meant to clarify existing postmarking practices.

Adjustments to the Postal Service’s transportation operations mean that some mail won’t arrive at a processing facility on the same day it’s mailed, according to an agency fact sheet. That means postmarks applied at the processing facility may not match the date the mail was given to a letter carrier or dropped off, the agency said, which is what’s raising concerns about whether some ballots mailed by the deadline could still not get counted.

Earlier in his career, Steiner was a tax accountant, he told the gathering, “and anyone that ever practiced tax accounting knows that there’s only one way to make sure that that tax return that has to be postmarked by April 15 is actually postmarked on April 15”: lining up at the post office and requesting a manual postmark.

Steiner urged the election officials in attendance to inform voters that they can request manual postmarks at post offices with a date that reflects when the ballot was mailed. He promised that the agency would continue to take steps to prioritize the timely delivery of election mail, but said voters need to mail ballots at least a week before the receipt deadline. “We want to make sure that every ballot is delivered, and mailing early is a big part of that,” he said.

Election officials in recent years have repeatedly voiced frustrations with mail delays and urged voters to cast their ballots earlier, so the current questions aren’t entirely new.

But they’re occurring now against a backdrop of rising concern over the federal government’s role in elections, and especially President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on mail ballots. Trump has suggested he might attempt to curb their use through an executive order.

If Trump, or any president, issues such an executive order, “have you gamed out what you’ll do?” Judd Choate, Colorado’s state elections director, asked a panel of postal officials following Steiner’s address. Colorado is one of several states where people vote primarily by mail.

Panelist Adrienne Marshall acknowledged she was asked the same question at a different event over the summer.

“Of course, by the Constitution … we are required to deliver the nation’s mail,” she noted.

Marshall said that, without her legal team there, she was “not sure” how exactly her agency would respond to a theoretical executive order, but said she believes any executive order on mail ballots would likely be aimed more at election officials than the Postal Service.

The Colorado Department of State said it’s prepared for various scenarios that might affect the 2026 election cycle, but a spokesman wouldn’t comment on specifics.

Another session at the conference aimed to prepare election officials for potential election interference, covering a range of scenarios from how to handle Justice Department and congressional observers to the implications of placing polling sites or ballot drop boxes on federal property.

At a session with an FBI representative, election officials raised questions about the threats against them and election workers, a constant refrain since the 2020 presidential election.

And at a session with two members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Vice Chair Thomas Hicks, a Democrat, told election officials to take every opportunity to educate members of Congress about election needs. He noted that two long-serving members of Congress who were instrumental in passing the landmark Help America Vote Act of 2002 — Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican — are retiring after this year, leaving what he described as “a huge, huge void, and that’s a bipartisan void.”

Election officials’ list of worries, in other words, remains long.

*Carrie Levine is Votebeat’s editor-in-chief and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Carrie atclevine@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

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an 1 26

One MS NOW producer is sounding the alarm about a comment President Donald Trump made during his extensive interview with theNew York Timesthat is telling about his 2026 intentions.

Kyle Griffin, executive producer of Weeknight wrote on Xthat the detail was a "BIG FLAG."

"Trump said during his interview with The New York Times that he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states after his loss in the 2020 election. He doubted whether the Guard was 'sophisticated enough' to carry out the order effectively," Griffin said.

The comments come as the Washington Post reported Monday morning "if his party loses," in the 2026 midterm elections, it is expected that Trump will "sow doubt in their validity."

Trump's new plans included forcing Republican state lawmaker to redraw congressional lines in Republicans' favor. That step, however, was only the beginning. Trump is also pushing to make voter registration more difficult and end the use of voting machines and mail-in ballots.

"The administration has gutted the role of the nation’s cybersecurity agency in protecting elections; stocked the Justice Department, Homeland Security Department and FBI from top to bottom with officials who have denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election; given a White House audience to people who, like the president, promote the lie that he won the 2020 election; sued over state and local election policies that Trump opposes; and called for a new census that excludes noncitizens," the Post explained.

"The wide-ranging efforts seek to expand on some of the strategies he and his advisers and allies used to try to reverse the 2020 results that culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021," the report added.

Stanford Law School Professor Nathaniel Persily, who focuses on democracy and elections-related law, told the Post, “I’m concerned about chaos and uncertainty in the administration of the 2026 election. There is a kind of avalanche of potential changes that are being proposed, and it’s at a time when people have lost trust in the election infrastructure and everybody’s on edge.” 1/11? TRUMP TOLD GOP MOC ALL ELECTIONS ARE RIGGED?! NO PUSHBACK

The White House claims that they're focused on making sure only eligible American citizens vote.

While Trump has joked about canceling the 2026 election, he doesn't have the authority to do it because local and state officials handle elections — not the federal government. That will be the barrier to a lot of Trump's efforts to change mail-in ballots or bar certain voting machines.

Trump issued an executive order that aimed to stop any state from accepting mail-in ballots received after Election Day. In many states, as long as a voter has the ballot post marked by Election Day, it is legal. A lower court has blocked the order, but the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the matter this year.

In another matter, the Justice Department has been in a battle with at least 40 states and Washington D.C., demanding voter rolls with personal identifying information including birth dates and partial Social Security numbers. Ten states have agreed to cooperate with the DOJ.

Read the full list of efforts Trump has made to change the 2026 midterm elections here.

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AN 11 25

Two government lawyers under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama write in*The Economist* that President Donald Trump has been signaling he may use the powers of the presidency to challenge the results of the 2026 midterm elections if they are not to his liking.

Jack Goldsmith and Bob Bauer say that while " the House race thus offers Democrats their best shot at putting some brakes on the Trump juggernaut," the president has been "actively stoking"public mistrust in the electoral process and that could pose a problem again next November.

"More ominously, under the banner of defending 'honest elections', he appears to be laying the groundwork to challenge and possibly manipulate them," they write.

"His words and actions strongly suggest he may use the formidable powers of the presidency — and possibly even the armed forces — to resist 2026 electoral results he dislikes," they add.

Trump, they write, has framed any of his electoral losses as "proof of opponents' fraud," pointing to his exhaustive efforts to overthrow his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

"His charges have weakened the once-bipartisan consensus that election administration should be insulated from politics," they write.

The authors say to expect both the Republican and Democratic parties to mount legal challenges in races they seem to be losing "by alleging error, fraud or other irregularities, demanding recounts and contesting results in the courts," but they say these "struggles could enter a whole new dimension owing to Mr Trump’s apparent readiness to use the redoubtable powers of the presidency to deny election results."

This must be taken very seriously, they write, especially considering the "heretical idea" Trump himself posed on Truth Social in which he said that states "must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, for the good of our country, to do."

This, they note, "flies in the face of the Constitution," yet Trump "has issued an executive order that claims presidential authority to impose on states his own view of the needed voting rules — including proof of citizenship, revised machine standards and limits on mail-ballot counting."

Trump has also put election deniers in key posts, they note, and with those in place, he "could order many kinds of federal intervention."

"But perhaps the gravest worry is that Trump will deploy the armed forces under the Insurrection Act," they write. "Trump could claim his opponents are obstructing election laws and call in troops to enforce those laws in accordance with his wishes. Such deployments could occur before, during or after voting begins."

The integrity of the midterms, they say, depends on the "fortitude" of state and local officials who administer the elections, and on how the American people react to them.

"A broad, highly visible public reaction could influence elected officials within Mr Trump’s party as they weigh the risks of complicity in any effort to subvert election results," they write.

"In the darkest scenarios, such as the deployment of troops to jurisdictions where Republicans lose, the degree of responsible civic resistance could determine whether the nation’s voting institutions hold firm," they add.

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// NEWSOM THREAT JAIL PRITZkER CHIC MAYOR

AN 10 25

'Wannabe dictator': Governor dares 'unhinged' Trump to carry out threat to jail him

//

an 10 25

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker issued a new warning on Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy the American military in US cities against the wishes of local elected officials.

Hours after Trump called for Pritzker’s imprisonment in a Wednesday morning Truth Social post, the Illinois governor claimed in an interview with MSNBC that the president’s ultimate goal with sending troops into US cities was to control the outcomes of future elections.

”He wants to militarize major cities across the United States, especially blue cities in blue states, because he wants us to get used to the idea of military on the streets,” he said. “2026 elections, I believe he’s going to post people outside ballot boxes and polling places, and, if he needs to in order to control those elections, he’ll assume control of the ballot boxes and count the votes himself.”

Pritzker pointed out that Trump considered ordering the military to seize ballot boxes after he lost the 2020 presidential election, but he was met with resistance from officials in his own administration.

However, Pritzker said that “I believe he would do it in 2026” to help Republicans maintain control of Congress.

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Pritzker also struck a defiant tone when asked about Trump’s call to imprison him.

”This guy’s a convicted felon who’s threatening to jail me!” he exclaimed. “This guy is unhinged. He’s insecure. He’s a wannabe dictator. And there’s one thing I really want to say to Donald Trump: If you come for my people, you come through me. So come and get me.”

Pritzker’s remarks come as Trump and his administration have deployed Texas National Guard soldiers to Chicago over the objections of both Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. The state and city are challenging the deployment in court.

Federal immigration officials have been employing increasingly aggressive and violent tactics in the Chicago area in recent weeks, including attacking a journalist and a protesting priest with pepper balls outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility; slamming a congressional candidate to the ground; dragging US citizens, including children, out of their homes during a raid in the middle of the night; and fatally shooting a man during a traffic stop.

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AN 9 25

'They will take what they want': 7 ways Trump is already planning to disrupt the midterms

Carl Gibson

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RWW

08/25/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

In this country, a presidential executive order cannot override a Supreme Court ruling. On flag burning, Trump doesn't appear to care.

President Donald Trump doubled down on his late Sunday attacks on ABC News in fresh demands that ABC and NBC should both lose their broadcast licenses because of what he called “biased and untruthful” coverage of his presidency.

The South Carolina gubernatorial candidate is known for her theatrics but reportedly struggled to find an audience—any audience.

Leonard Leo, the longtime Federalist Society honcho, is lending a hand to Republican candidates in key races.

President Trump has embraced an array of far-right views and talking points in ways that have delighted many right-wing activists who have long supported those ideas.

The anti-woke warrior’s authoritarian roots are showing.

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AN 8 25

During his four years as president, Joe Biden worried that if Donald Trump ever returned to the White House, it would pose a major threat to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Trump, during his first term, toyed with the idea of withdrawing the U.S. from NATO — whereas Biden, as president, aggressively championed NATO's expansion when Sweden and Finland opted to join the alliance.

Seven months into Trump's second presidency, the U.S. is still a NATO member. But author/military historian Phillips O'Brien, during an interview with economist Paul Krugman, stressed that Trump's return to the White House marks a dramatic change in U.S./Europe relations.

Krugman, on August 23, posted video of the interview on his SubStack page and also published it as a Q&A article. And O'Brien voiced major concerns about the United States' relationship with Europe.

READ MORE:Bill Maher hits raw nerve with detailed warning of Trump's 'slow-moving coup'

"The United States is going to great lengths to antagonize its allies," O'Brien told Krugman. "I don't get it. None of this makes any sense to me."

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The author/historian said of the Ukraine/Russia War, "I think what happens to Ukraine will determine how Europe deals with this. If Ukraine is sacrificed, I think Europe is going to have a terrible future. Because it's going to be dependent on the U.S., which has basically sacrificed Ukraine to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's Russia. Europe might even break apart, structurally, such that you'll have the Central Eastern Europeans, the ones who want to stand by Ukraine, the Finns, the Baltics, the Nordics going one way and then the Western Europeans sort of pretending things are OK."

O'Brien added, "So, I think people are underrating the chance of Europe splitting over Ukraine, which is why it's so important, I think, that Ukraine comes out of the war in good shape."

According to O'Brien, U.S. allies in Europe will be paying very close attention to the outcome of the United States' 2026 midterms.

READ MORE:MAGA is panicking as Trump finally meets his match

"Well, that's the key thing, isn't it? The 2026 midterms," O'Brien told Krugman. "I don't think people are paying enough attention, because they have to be run fairly. I do think the Democrats have a very good chance of winning them if they are run fairly and happen under normal conditions. But they could also be easily perverted…. I would say that 2026 elections will show not whether America can come back, but whether it has a chance to come back — or whether the period we're going into could be a lot longer and darker than we imagined."

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mma

August 18, 2025, edition of MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show

RACHEL MADDOW (HOST): Trump said Putin says that people shouldn't be allowed to vote by mail. Says that he got that idea from Putin. And so today Trump says that he will sign an executive order banning Americans nationwide from voting by mail.

...

I feel like I'm seeing three different lanes, three different tactics by which Trump is trying to call into question the normalcy and to sort of change expectations around the 2026 midterms. Do you think that's fair? Do you disagree?

GARRETT GRAFF (GUEST): I absolutely agree, and I think that what you're doing is key to understanding this. Which is I think too often we think of sort of Donald Trump being crazy over here, being crazy over here, and being crazy over here and that they're not related to some sort of larger plan or effort. Whereas I think what we are seeing is this roadmap for how our country loses free and fair elections. Which is I have never been one to believe that, you know, Donald Trump is going to cancel the midterms or cancel the 2028 presidential race. Russia, as we know, has elections. Saddam Hussein was elected head of Iraq when he was dictator there. Instead, what I think we are watching is subtle and not so subtle efforts by Republicans across the country, including in the White House, to change who gets to vote, how they vote, and subtly shape the electorate for 2026 and 2028, such that Republicans can lock in an illegitimate minority rule.

MADDOW: That, of course, proceeds in parallel with Trump's yearslong effort to try to normalize the questioning of otherwise normal election results. So if you are narrowing, as you say, the number of people who can vote and the means by which people can vote, and you have normalized this idea that election results are inherently suspect and shouldn't be trusted if they don't favor Trump and his causes, that stew gets pretty toxic pretty quickly whether or not elections are canceled. I mean, you get, I guess the question is how you — where you see the line being drawn as to whether or not elections still count as free and fair once you're playing in these sorts of categories.

GRAFF: Absolutely. And I think you also need to fast-forward through some of the developments that we're seeing this year. You know, the hiring of 10,000 new ICE officers represents a sort of super-empowered professional thuggery in cities across the country where federal law enforcement has been a light, if any, presence. You know, we have armed National Guard troops headed from red states into blue cities right now, just as they did in Los Angeles earlier this spring. You don't need to discourage all that many people voting in all that many places across the country to radically reshape national politics.

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ggl 7 25

[### Crypto industry amasses colossal war chest for elections

Politico

https://www.politico.com › news › 2025/07/15 › crypto...](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/15/crypto-super-pacs-war-chest-key-house-votes-00452356)

1 day ago — Since the 2024 campaign ended, crypto firms have doubled down: The PAC network has raised $109 million since Election Day. The latest ...

A super PAC group funded by cryptocurrency companies will enter the upcoming midterm elections with more than $140 million in the bank, according to new fundraising data shared first with POLITICO — a mammoth sum that now looms large over an effort to pass industry-friendly legislation in the House this week.

The group, known as Fairshake, raised $52 million in the first half of 2025, piling onto an already huge sum of crypto campaign cash that could be wielded against lawmakers who oppose the industry’s Capitol Hill agenda — and boost the political fortunes of those who support it.

The PAC network’s fundraising highlights how top crypto firms are plowing ahead with a lobbying strategy that overtly uses political spending to get their way from Congress. The group includes three affiliated super PACs — Fairshake, Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs — that collectively spent $135 million supporting industry allies and taking down crypto critics in Congressional races across the country last year.

Spending by the group in the 2024 campaigns helped take down key roadblocks to the industry’s policy agenda, including former Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown, who lost his Ohio re-election campaign to Republican Bernie Moreno — a crypto enthusiast who benefited from more than $40 million of crypto PAC spending. The PACs also boosted industry supporters in dozens of other House and Senate races across the country, including the California Democratic Senate primary and hotly-contested House races in Alabama, Arizona and Virginia.

Since the 2024 campaign ended, crypto firms have doubled down: The PAC network has raised $109 million since Election Day. The latest fundraising haul comes as the House is preparing to take up landmark crypto legislation this week that would help legitimize digital assets as mainstream financial products and craft bespoke new rules governing the sector.

“Fairshake is stronger than ever as we remain focused on our mission of building lasting support for crypto and blockchain innovation,” said Josh Vlasto, spokesperson for the PAC group. “We are building an aggressive, targeted strategy for next year to ensure that pro-crypto voices are heard in key races across the country.”

The PAC is primarily funded by three companies: the venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, which invests heavily in digital asset startups, and the crypto firms Coinbase and Ripple.

Fairshake’s latest fundraising haul includes $25 million donated by Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, along with previously announced contributions from Ripple Labs, Uniswap Labs, and the crypto entrepreneur Robert Leshner.

Coinbase’s chief policy officer, Faryar Shirzad, said in a statement that “crypto is already woven into America’s financial fabric,” and the company is “committed to fighting for the consumer protections and financial empowerment” that digital asset owners “deserve.”

The top Washington priority for the group’s top donors is a GOP-led crypto market structure bill expected to go to the House floor on Wednesday that seeks to create a first-ever crypto regulatory regime by divvying up oversight of digital assets between securities and commodities regulators.

Republicans leading the push for that bill are seeking to win over as many Democrats as they can ahead of the floor vote in order to show that the measure has political viability in the Senate, where bipartisan support is needed to clear a 60-vote threshold. A similar GOP-led proposal passed the House with 71 Democratic votes last year — as Fairshake was beginning to ramp up for the 2024 campaign — but concerns over the Trump family’s business entanglements in crypto may make matching that figure difficult this week.

Some Democrats are considering voting against the sweeping market structure measure but supporting a second, narrower crypto bill affecting so-called stablecoins that the House is expected to send to President Donald Trump’s desk on Thursday.

The crypto super PACs, though, have signaled that the vote breakdown on the broader bill, led by House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.), will be their primary consideration as they weigh how to deploy their 2026 haul. The group spent more than $30 million benefiting House Democrats during the last campaign.

A non-profit dark money group that is affiliated with the Fairshake PACs called the Cedar Innovation Foundation said in a statement Monday that Hill’s so-called CLARITY Act is “the most important vote members will take this Congress.”

// Trump Border Czar Tom Homan: ‘There Will Be No Amnesty’ | The Conversation

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no lnx

Trump won't need to cancel the midterms if this Republican plot succeeds

Thom Hartmann July 08, 2025

James Carville isn’t a man prone to panic, but when he says, “I would not put it at all past [Trump] to try to call martial law or declare that there’s some kind of national emergency,” around next year’s elections, it’s time to sit up straight.

Speaking to NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo, Carville warned that as Donald Trump sees a political shellacking coming in the 2026 midterms — particularly in states like New Jersey and Virginia — he may try something extreme to hold onto power.

“The hoof prints are coming,” Carville said, and he’s not wrong.

This isn’t hyperbole. This is history — the history of nations that have lost their democracies like Hungary and Russia — threatening to repeat itself.

Trump has already laid the psychological and structural groundwork to undermine or suspend elections; he just may not need to declare martial law if his fixers pull off what’s happening already this year.

Award-winning investigative journalist Greg Palast, a committed non-partisan, has laid it out in painful detail. And what he’s uncovered should terrify every American who believes in democracy.

Palast argues that Trump’s GOP doesn’t have to wait for November 2026 to win. They plan to win it in 2025, through something he calls The Great Purge, authorized by five corrupt Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court.

That’s right: before you even cast a vote, millions of names may already be scrubbed from voter rolls. If you’re Black, Latino, a student, a woman who changed her name at marriage, a military service member, or simply someone who moved apartments, you’re already a target.

Let’s break it down:

In the lead-up to the 2024 election, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission reported over 19 million names purged from voter rolls. While many were valid (deceased or moved), at least 4.47 million were blocked from voting due to bureaucratic tricks like “failure to return confirmation notices,” a tactic voting rights lawyers call “caging.”

In Georgia, Palast’s team working with the ACLU found that 63.3% of voters purged via caging were wrongly removed. Many were African-American.

Georgia’s GOP Secretary of State proudly doubled down in 2023, targeting 875,000 voters, and that’s just one state.

Thirty states now use an error-ridden system called ERIC for voter purging. Not accurate enough? Trump’s legal henchwoman, Cleta Mitchell, is pushing for a new program called EagleAI, the modern version of the GOP’s 1960s “Eagle Eye” voter intimidation operation.

If that wasn’t enough, Republicans have introduced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would force every newly registered or updated voter to present proof of citizenship in person. And if the name on your birth certificate is different from your passport or driver’s license, you can’t register or vote.

According to Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center, over 21 million Americans don’t have those documents readily available. And 69 million women don’t have their married name on their birth certificate. Many Americans don’t know where their passport or birth certificate is, especially those living in poverty, moving frequently, or serving overseas.

And let’s be clear about the excuse for this law: A racist myth. The Heritage Foundation, pushing the SAVE Act, claims millions of undocumented immigrants vote. But even Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who made it his mission to arrest illegal voters, found exactly zero in court. In fact, his law blocked 36,000 legal Kansas voters and was thrown out for being unconstitutional.

And now they’re bragging that they just purged 5 million new names so far this year, according to Judicial Watch.

Still, these tactics persist. Why? Because they work.

In 2000, George W. Bush won Florida by just 537 votes after tens of thousands of Black voters were falsely labeled as felons and purged by George’s brother, then-Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Today’s tactics are far more sophisticated and widespread, and with a Trumpified Supreme Court, far harder to stop.

Under Trump, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division — once the bulwark against voter suppression — has become complicit. Don’t expect any help from the feds if your name goes missing from the rolls.

In fact, Georgia’s Secretary of State has already requested access to DHS’s SAVE database — a tool used to track deported immigrants — to cross-reference voters. When Florida tried this in 2012, they removed 172,000 voters but only found one actual non-citizen: an Austrian Republican. But thousands of Hispanic voters were wrongly barred because they had common names like Jose Garcia.

That’s not election security. That’s systemic suppression.

While official channels do their damage, Trump’s allies are also organizing a private MAGA militia of self-appointed “fraud hunters.” In 2024, these vigilantes challenged over one million ballots. In 2026, Palast reports, they’re gearing up to challenge even more, targeting key swing states like Georgia and Pennsylvania.

And if state officials don’t comply with Trump’s purge lists, Mitchell promises her army will go door-to-door, one voter at a time.

Remember, all of this happens before a single vote is cast.

And if that doesn’t work? Now that Congress has funded ICE to become the largest (secret, masked) police agency in America with a network of concentration camps across the country, answerable only to Donald Trump, pretty much anything is possible.

Carville may sound alarmist when he talks about martial law, but let’s remember: Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election, summoned a mob to the Capitol, and flirted with using the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against protestors, who he had asked his generals to “shoot in the legs.”

He’s mused to his followers, “You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.” That’s not subtle. That’s a warning.

And while right-wing pundits like Bill O’Reilly chuckle and offer “18 muffalettas” in mockery, the groundwork for a democratic backslide is already laid, through legal loopholes, voter suppression, intimidation of Republican legislators like we saw yesterday, misinformation, and judicial capture.

Martial law may not arrive with tanks. It may come in the form of a national emergency declaration, a manufactured riot, or the pretense of mass fraud. Trump doesn’t have to cancel the election; he just has to delegitimize it enough to override it.

So what do we do?

As Palast warns: don’t despair. “They can’t steal all the votes all of the time.” But they sure as hell can steal enough.

We need:

Massive voter education on how to confirm your registration and re-register early.

Lawsuits and court challenges in every state adopting suppression tactics.

Federal action, if not from the Justice Department, then from an organized, relentless citizenry.

Election monitoring from independent and international groups.

And, when Democrats are again in power (G-d willing), a law that explicitly says we have a right to vote. It’s insane that government has to get a court order (thanks, Supreme Court) to take away your gun, but doesn’t even have to notify you when they take away your vote.

If Trump succeeds in today’s massive purge of largely Democratic voters and delegitimizing results, he won’t need martial law. The authoritarian train won’t arrive with a bang; it’ll glide in silently, on rails we failed to see being laid down this year.

So yes, James Carville is right to sound the alarm. And Greg Palast has done the reporting to prove it.

Now it’s up to us to stop it. Pass it along.

NOW READ: The Supreme Court just made it so that you can no longer look away

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AN 6 26

HARBINGER?

Many Democrats have been feeling demoralized since the 2024 election — not only because of Kamala Harris' narrow 1.5 percent loss to now-President Donald Trump, but also, because Republicans flipped the U.S. Senate while narrowly holding the U.S. House of Representatives. Yet some Democrats, in 2025, have decent approval ratings in tough, competitive swing states — including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (63 percent, according to Impeach Research), Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (59 percent, according to Morning Consult) and Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona (50 percent, according to the Phoenix-based Noble Predictive Insights).

Gallego is sounding the alarm about Democrats needing to step up their game among working-class voters in swing states. And he is taking his message beyond Arizona.

During a recent town hall event in a swing district in the Philadelphia suburbs, Gallego told attendees, "What happened the last election is that we got so pure, and we kept so pure that we started kicking people out of the tent. It ends up there aren't enough people in the tent to win elections."

READ MORE: '**Stop the foolishness': Susan Collins in the hot seat as she navigates Trump's second term

In an article published on June 3, Axios' Stephen Neukam emphasizes that Gallego is "making moves to appeal to moderates and boost his national profile barely five months after winning his seat."

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"Axios has learned that Gallego — who kept his seat in the Democrats' column despite Trump's victory in Arizona — is planning additional stops in key battlegrounds over the coming months," Neukam reports. "The big picture: There are signs that Gallego's appeals to moderates and conservatives are starting to make a difference for him back home. Gallego's 50 percent statewide approval rating in May is higher than Trump's and Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs', according to a recent poll by Noble Predictive Insights, a Phoenix-based nonpartisan polling firm."

Liberal but not far-left, Gallego was a frequent critic of his predecessor: former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who he believed was hurting Democrats' legislative goals during Joe Biden's presidency. Facing an aggressive primary challenge from Gallego in 2024, Sinema left the Democratic Party and became an independent — then decided against seeking reelection.

Sinema, during her term, warned that Democrats should not alienate the center — especially in a tough swing state like Arizona. And now, Gallego has a similar message.

READ MORE:'Beyond the pale': Scarborough rips 'childish' Joni Ernst for 'mocking her constituents'

According to Neukam, "One senior GOP operative said Gallego is the type of Democrat who appeals to the swing voters that both parties fight over at each election. Another senior GOP aide said Gallego is what Democrats wanted Gov. Tim Walz (D-Min.) to be in the 2024 election — a veteran from a working-class background who appeals to the middle."

READ MORE:'Very daunting': Trump just left this swing state on the hook following new cuts to grants

*Read Stephen Neukam's full report for Axiosat this link.

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AN 4 25

President Donald Trump's top loyalists are angling to climb the political ladder to help secure the future for his ultra-MAGA movement—and position themselves for greater influence. House members like far-right U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) are looking at the U.S. Senate, and far-right U.S. senators like Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reportedly see hope in governors' mansions.

Some critical U.S. senators on both sides of the aisle are retiring, like Republican former Majority and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and the second-highest-ranking Democrat senator, Dick Durbin of Illinois.

"Democrats anxious to deny Donald Trump and his Republican Party a governing trifecta as soon as possible are feeling pretty good about their prospects for flipping the House in 2026, given the GOP’s fragile margin of control and the historical pattern of sizable midterm losses for the president’s party," New York magazine's "Intelligencer" reported last month.

"But the Senate, which has the power to confirm Trump’s executive branch and judicial nominations, is really going to be a reach. Democrats would need to flip four Senate seats to win control of the chamber. And an already difficult landscape is being made even tougher by the retirements of Democratic incumbents Gary Peters of Michigan, Tina Smith of Minnesota, and now Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. All three of these open seats could potentially trigger competitive races in 2026."

READ MORE: ‘Reeks of Eugenics’: RFK Jr.’s Autism ‘Registry’ Draws Nazi Germany Comparisons

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Enter Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who went from a freshman stripped of all of her committee assignments over incendiary language, to becoming chair of the Delivering on Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) subcommittee. She also sits on the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Congresswoman Greene is now thinking about becoming Senator Greene. If successful, her controversial tactics could have a dramatic impact on what is supposed to be the "world's greatest deliberative body."

Rep. Greene is reportedly eyeing a run to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff, and believes she would “crush” any GOP primary opponent—except Governor Brian Kemp, should he choose to enter the race—according to the right-wing website Daily Caller.

"Republicans are laser-focused on defeating Ossoff, whose narrow victory over former Republican Georgia Sen. David Perdue in a January 2021 runoff election was partly responsible for costing Senate Republicans their majority during the 2020 cycle," Daily Caller notes, adding, "Ossoff is the only Senate Democrat running for reelection in a state that Trump won last November."

Could Greene beat Ossoff?

READ MORE: Trump’s SignalGate Sit-Down Mocked as a ‘Him in a Nutshell’ Moment

"This would be a dream for Dems in Georgia," should Greene run, observed veteran journalist Lydia Polgreen.

"Somewhere at the DSCC [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee] some operative is frantically wondering if there is anything they can do to ensure this happens," wrote University of Pennsylvania political and media historian Brian Rosenwald.

A Daily Caller source also suggested Ossoff would retain his Senate seat, especially should the election move into a runoff. And Ossoff "has been taunting Greene to jump into the race."

Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville is reportedly mapping out a run for the Alabama Governor's mansion.

"Tuberville told a group of donors at a private event on Wednesday night that his mind is officially made up," the conservative website Yellowhammer News reported. "Rather than seeking re-election to the U.S. Senate, he is ready to run his next race in Alabama, and serve the people of the state in Montgomery instead of Washington.

An official campaign announcement is imminent in the coming weeks, but latest reports offer insight into a finalized decision by Tuberville, who has been privately discussing jumping into the 2026 gubernatorial race for quite some time."

Senator Tuberville reportedly is "furious" at the leak, according to an opinion column at Alabama Political Reporter.

"Tuberville melted down like a plastic lawn chair in July. By Thursday morning, the whispers had turned into headlines. Then Tuberville took to Facebook — and things got weird."

“While I appreciate all the interest,” Tuberville wrote, “Suzanne and I are still praying about how to best serve the people of Alabama. When I have an official announcement about my future, you’ll hear it directly from me.”

U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn, a top "Trump loyalist," is "strongly looking" at a run for the Tennessee governor's mansion.

The Tennessean reports that "early polling suggests she would likely be the Republican frontrunner. Some politicos across the state consider her success a foregone conclusion: at a Tennessee Chamber of Commerce event in January, attendees called her 'Gov. Blackburn.'"

And U.S. Rep. Jim Comer (R-KY), the chair of the powerful House Oversight Committee, has also said he would be interested in running for governor.

READ MORE: ‘Incompetent. Irresponsible. Negligent’: Calls Mount for Hegseth’s Ouster or Prosecution

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an 2 26

Democratic strategists are hoping that the United States' 2026 midterms will echo the midterms of 2018, when, during President Donald Trump's first term, Democrats flipped the U.S. House of Representatives and enjoyed a net gain of 41 seats. Republicans held the U.S. Senate that year, but the House saw a major blue wave. And in January 2017, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) once again became House speaker.

It remains to be seen, however, what the 2026 midterms will bring.

Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville, noting Trump's weak approval ratings in some polls, is predicting that 2026 will be terrible for Republicans. But according to CNN, Trump is promising GOP lawmakers that "he intends to open up his massive stockpile of campaign reserves" to "defend the party's slim majorities in both chambers next year."

READ MORE:'Chainsaw anyone?' Analysis details $38 billion in taxpayer gifts to world's richest man

CNN reporters Steve Contorno and Sarah Ferris, in an article published on February 27, explain, "President Donald Trump is already exerting his influence over the 2026 midterm elections, endorsing two close allies in open gubernatorial contests in the past week and privately signaling plans to shape the Republican ticket in more key races next year, according to people familiar with the discussions…. But even as he pledges financial support, Trump has not ruled out intervening in primaries to bolster challengers against Republican officeholders he perceives as insufficiently loyal."

Trump, according to Contorno and Ferris, is "intent on avoiding the political setbacks that marred his first administration."

"Then," the CNN reporters note, "Democrats reclaimed the House two years into his presidency, launching investigations into his administration and personal finances and ultimately voting twice to impeach him. Determined this time to have a compliant Congress for all four years, Trump began discussing his midterm strategy shortly after his November victory, people close to him said."

The Contorno and Ferris point out that "whatever Trump contributes toward helping fellow Republicans" in 2026 "would likely outpace his efforts during past midterm election cycles, when he still had his own political ambitions to fund."

READ MORE:'Putting on a blindfold and smashing everything': New Trump order draws fire from critics

According to Contorno and Ferris, "Top advisers have briefed Trump on next year's battleground maps, outlining for him where there are opportunities to add allied Republican governors and seats in Congress as well as which turf will need defending. Trump’s former co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita is expected to play a heavy role coordinating midterm strategy from outside the White House."

READ MORE:'Don’t ever, ever take the position': GOP senator gives stern warning to Trump DOJ nominees

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