Trump's Ongoing Efforts to Undermine Fair Midterm Elections Despite Supreme Court Setback
Source: Ian Prasad Philbrick. "Despite the Supreme Court's mail-in ballot ruling, Trump is still trying to rig the midterms.." September 15, 2026. slate.com
The Gist
Even though the Supreme Court stopped one of Trump's schemes to mess with mail-in voting, he's still trying other tactics to help Republicans win in November—like demanding voter data from states, hunting for fraud that barely exists, and pushing conspiracy theories about voting machines. The author argues that even if courts block these efforts, the constant claims of fraud are making Americans lose faith in whether the elections will be fair at all.
Conclusion
Although the Supreme Court blocked Trump's attempt to disrupt mail-in voting, Trump is still pursuing multiple other strategies to tilt the 2026 midterm elections in Republicans' favor and undermine confidence in their fairness.
Premises
- The Trump administration is pressuring states to hand over sensitive voter databases, despite most states resisting and courts largely ruling against the administration.
- The Department of Homeland Security has assigned hundreds of employees to search for alleged noncitizen voters, sometimes allegedly violating state privacy laws in the process, despite noncitizen voting being extremely rare (about 100 cases in 25 years per the Heritage Foundation).
- A whistleblower alleged the U.S. Postal Service continued building an online portal that could have facilitated mass rejection of mail ballots, despite a court order blocking this work.
- Trump has ordered investigations into debunked 2020 voting irregularities and continues attacking voting machines despite no evidence they've changed election results, seemingly to lay groundwork for future fraud claims.
- Trump has publicly stated he wants to 'take over' elections, which are constitutionally administered at the state level as a safeguard against centralized manipulation.
- Public trust in the fairness of the midterms is already eroding, with less than half of Americans expecting free and fair elections, which itself constitutes a harm regardless of actual outcomes.
Assumptions
- Trump's stated concerns about election fraud are pretextual rather than genuine, motivated by a desire to secure favorable electoral outcomes.
- Decentralized state-level election administration is inherently more trustworthy and resistant to manipulation than centralized federal control.
- Actions that create legal battles, sow doubt, or fail in court still constitute meaningful attempts to 'rig' elections even if unsuccessful.
- The various actions described (data requests, DHS investigations, USPS portal, rhetoric about fraud) are causally or strategically connected as part of a coordinated effort rather than isolated incidents.
- Eroding public confidence in election integrity is itself a significant harm, separate from whether actual vote counts are manipulated.