Today, Donald Trump told us how he really feels about the midterms: “When you win the presidency, you don't win the midterms.” His conclusion was stark: “We shouldn’t even have an election.”
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January 15, 2026
Today, Donald Trump told us how he really feels about the midterms: “When you win the presidency, you don't win the midterms.” His conclusion was stark: “We shouldn’t even have an election.”
In 2016, Donald Trump sought to suppress voting rights. He and his supporters employed the usual tactics to intimidate and mislead voters. By 2020, Trump was no longer satisfied with voter suppression alone. He added a new tactic to his playbook of dirty tricks: election subversion.
For weeks, Trump and his allies launched a concerted effort in court to overturn the results of a free and fair election. I helped lead the Biden team to more than 60 court victories as we defeated virtually all of Trump’s subversion schemes.
Then, on Jan. 6, Trump instigated a violent insurrection at the Capitol in a last-ditch effort to prevent Congress from meeting to certify the Electoral College results. The tragic outcome left people dead and public confidence in our democracy in tatters.
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In 2022, out of power but still wielding enormous influence over the GOP, Trump embraced election denialism and supported candidates who most loudly aligned themselves with this new anti-democratic ideology. The results were devastating for Republican midterm hopes, as many of these candidates lost their races.
Still, they absorbed the lessons of Trumpism. Many contested the outcomes of clear defeats, only to suffer further humiliating losses in court. In some states, GOP election officials even refused to certify election results, only to be sued. In the end, democracy prevailed — but Trump was not finished.
By 2024, Joe Biden was in office, so it was in Trump’s best interest for elections to proceed. His strategy was simple: to expand the number of key election officials loyal to him rather than the will of voters.
Trump’s plan in 2024, had he lost, was to subvert the results from within by pressuring these officials to refuse to certify Biden as the winner. In the end, Trump won the 2024 election, so we never saw these seeds of subversion grow into trees bearing the poisonous fruit of illegitimate outcomes.
But as we turn toward 2026, Trump is once again escalating his attacks on free and fair elections. Last week, he openly lamented that he did not have the National Guard seize voting machines after his 2020 defeat. Before that, he posted on social media that states act as his agents in the tabulation and counting of ballots.
Trump’s message is clear: He wants to dictate election outcomes by taking control of voting equipment and ballots — ultimately deciding which votes count and which are discarded.
While seizing actual ballots is a newer threat, the mass discarding of lawful votes has long been a GOP staple. Just last year, a Republican candidate for the North Carolina Supreme Court attempted to steal an election by throwing out the votes of more than 100,000 citizens. He failed only because a federal judge intervened.
This failure is nothing new. For the past six years, Trump has watched in humiliation as Republican election litigation repeatedly failed to deliver the results he wanted. He has listened as right-wing commentators lament their lack of a lawyer capable of achieving similar outcomes on their side.
As Trump’s popularity declines and his age becomes more apparent, his rhetoric has grown increasingly extreme. That is how we arrive — 10 months before the midterms — at a sitting president suggesting the cancellation of the next federal election.
White House staff quickly attempted damage control, suggesting he was merely joking. This, too, fits a familiar pattern. This White House often feels compelled to excuse the behavior of the President.
This is not simply an embarrassing moment caused by age or a poor joke. Donald Trump is an authoritarian with a long pattern of anti-democratic behavior. The only difference is that he’s saying the quiet part out loud.
Trump is currently supporting a federal paramilitary force’s assault on the civil rights of U.S. citizens. He is using the Department of Justice to harass political opponents. He has pardoned those who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on our democracy.
The good news is that elections will be held in November. Donald Trump does not have the power to cancel them. He does, however, have the ability to make them less free and less fair.
Those of us in the pro-democracy movement must be just as determined to protect elections as he is to undermine them. I hope his recent statements — including those made today — serve as the wake-up call we need to focus on this looming threat.
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