Donald Trump is deploying presidential authority to influence the 2026 midterm elections to prevent Republican losses and maintain control of Congress. His multipronged strategy targets electoral mechanics through redrawing congressional maps, purging voter rolls, restricting mail-in voting, challenging voting machines, and directing the Justice Department to probe Democratic fundraising. Those interventions are characterized as more aggressive and legally dubious than past presidential conduct, reflecting a pattern of litigating contested actions. He is emphasizing crime and law-and-order messaging, deploying the National Guard in Washington DC and threatening federal actions in other cities, with higher public approval on crime.
Donald Trump has made clear that he is willing to bring the full weight of the White House to bear to prevent his Republican party losing control of the US Congress in the midterm elections next year, orchestrating a more direct and legally dubious intervention than any of his predecessors. The US president's multipronged approach includes redrawing congressional district maps, seeking to purge voter rolls, taking aim at mail-in voting and voting machines, and ordering the justice department to investigate Democrats' prime fundraising tool.
Nobody's ever tried to do this, said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington. Most American presidents, Democratic or Republican, have basically played by the same rules and been careful of the constitution. But in his business career Trump never cared about whether he was doing something legal or not; he just went to court and same thing here. Campaigning, not governing, has often been Trump's comfort zone.
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