I've been dreading writing this article and have been putting it off for weeks (because it truly is such a distasteful and depressing subject to even contemplate), but today Reuters essentially wrote the article for me, so I can just summarize their findings and add in a bit of my own commentary.

It is a distasteful subject because before Donald Trump entered the world of politics, American elections were seen as a model for the rest of the world to follow. They were overwhelmingly free, fair, and secure. This changed a bit in the 2000 election, where the Supreme Court stepped in and stopped Florida from recounting their presidential ballots, but that was seen as an aberration and a one-off sort of event.

Then came Trump. To Donald Trump, any election anywhere in which either he or his fellow Republicans don't win is (almost by definition, to him) "rigged." His delusions on this subject are truly of Brobdingnagian proportions. In 2016, Trump won the presidency but lost the popular vote. So he insisted that he actually had won the popular vote -- even in deep blue states like California -- but that millions upon millions of illegal immigrants had voted for Hillary Clinton. He even put together a presidential commission to look into all these millions of illegal votes, only to have them quietly disband months later after not having found any.

We all know what happened in the 2020 election. First, Trump's team filed over 60 lawsuits insisting there was widespread election fraud all over the country. He lost them all, because none of them even came remotely close to proving in a court of law Trump's delusion that enough votes to change the outcome were fraudulent (just because Trump said so). Most of these cases were laughed out of court. Then, in a rage, Trump incited an insurrection attempt against Congress on the day they were scheduled to certify the election results in every state and officially declare Joe Biden the winner. January 6th is a day that will forevermore live in infamy in American history. Election denialism became a litmus test for Trump, demanding every other Republican back his delusions up to the hilt. And January 6th showed that Trump wasn't above cheering on violence to promote such denialism.

Since he got re-elected in 2024, Trump has demanded loyalty on election denialism for anyone who works for him or is nominated to federal posts by him. And now he's got his hands on the federal levers of power, backed up by absolutely zero "adults in the room" who will tell him (as forcefully as necessary) when he is overstepping his bounds and abusing his power. Instead, Trump now has people downright eager to back up his delusions. It's a dangerous situation, obviously.

Which is why millions of people are now worried about the upcoming midterm elections. Who knows what Trump will try to do? He appears headed for an epic defeat, which he simply will not accept (if the past is any prologue). So it is worth breaking down all the myriad ways that Trump could react.

In order to write the article, "Reuters interviewed more than 50 election officials, voting experts and election lawyers, and reviewed [Donald] Trump's public statements, court filings and actions by federal agencies." They came up with nine specific areas to worry about.

I've reordered these to put them into three groups. The first consists of things that could happen either just before or during the actual election itself. The second contains the things that Trump could do immediately after an election (or even during it, if he moves fast enough). And the third are the things Trump could do after an election but before the new Congress is seated next January. All the section headings are from the Reuters article (which is well worth reading in full), with my own quick summary of what they all mean after them.

Emergency declaration

Trump could declare a national emergency. He could use the reason of "voter fraud" or "foreign election interference" to do so, or make up something even more outlandish. A declaration of national emergency would give Trump sweeping powers, which he could use to do any number of things (all of them bad). This is a presidential power, so all it would take would be Trump signing a document for it to happen. And he's already tried to pave the way, with a primetime televised address a few months back which darkly warned about Chinese interference and noncitizen votes, so he'll likely just dust off that speech and update it to declare a national emergency.

Federal election monitors interfere with voting

The Justice Department is planning to deploy 1,000 federal election monitors in November. This would be the largest number of federal election monitors in history (only 590 were deployed in the 2024 election). They will (no doubt) be deployed in precincts with high numbers of Democrats voting (especially those of color). And such federal election monitors have already overstepped their bounds by trying to interview voters and inspect election voting equipment in Wyoming's primary this year, so this is a very valid worry.

ICE presence near polling sites

This one needs no explanation, really. Deploying ICE agents near polling places would have one goal: intimidating people not to vote. The secretary of Homeland Security recently refused to rule out such a move when he was directly asked about it.

Troops at polling places

Trump could declare an emergency and attempt to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to call out members of the military and possibly send them to polling places. Again, this would almost certainly happen only in Democratic areas of the country, and would be even more intimidating than ICE agents. Federal laws "forbid troops from deploying to polling locations, interfering with election administration or intimidating voters," but Trump might not care and order them to do so anyway. Who's going to stop him? Pete Hegseth? Trump's Department of Justice?

Trump alleges election fraud or compromised voting machines

There are three things Trump could do right after the election (during the counting of the votes, most likely) or in the days which follow. This one is the easiest to picture happening, because it always happens with Trump. Remember, any election that a Republican doesn't win is always "rigged," to Trump. So he could claim "that noncitizens voted illegally, voting machines were manipulated, election workers tampered with ballots, or late-counted votes were suspicious." One assumes that this will all be fodder for later court cases, which will be designed to cast suspicion on any Democratic win and drag the process out in order to enable other ways to obstruct the will of the people.

Pressuring election officials to change or cancel results

Once again, we don't have to use much imagination to picture this one happening, because it already has. The tape of Trump trying to strongarm Georgia elections officials into "finding" the exact number of votes Trump would have needed to win the election was made public in 2020. This year, there are plenty of otherwise-red states with very competitive races for both House and Senate seats. Trump may just call them up on Election Night (or just afterwards) and try to strongarm them into throwing away just enough Democratic votes to rig the election for the Republican candidate. And while the Republicans in Georgia stood strong and refused Trump's pleas, there's no guarantee that Republicans in (say) Texas will do the same this time around.

Seizing ballots or voting equipment

This would be the most dramatic step Trump could take, either in conjunction with calling out the military (something he mused about doing in 2020) or just by sending federal agents to demand possession of all the ballots. Trump could try to do so without any court order, wrapping it into his declaration of a national emergency. If Trump's minions get their mitts on ballots or voting machines, then the chain of custody (which is critically important in proving the validity of an election) will be broken, and there is little doubt what would happen afterwards. "Recounts" would appear showing (Ta da!) that all of the Republican candidates actually won their races.

Federal investigations and charges against election officials

These last two would happen after the election, most likely. Because American voters won't be able to breathe easy and trust that a peaceful transfer of power will take place as the Constitution and U.S. history demand until every member of the new Congress is sworn in. Trump's Justice Department has already been sending threatening letters to elections officials (even in deep red states such as Idaho) and trying to force the states to turn over their voting rolls to the federal government for review. A quick reminder: the Constitution gives the states the power to conduct elections, not the federal government. But Trump doesn't care about such niceties, he's much more interested in raw intimidation.

Congress refuses to seat election winners

This one was covered in great detail by an article written a month ago by retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig -- who is about as conservative as can be imagined. Luttig outlined how Speaker of the House Mike Johnson could abuse his power to reject the certification of new (Democratic) members, prior to the constitutionally-mandated swearing-in on January 3rd of next year. Read the whole thing if you really want to get worried about the depths to which Republicans might sink in order to retain their grasp on power.

Conclusion

This is all very depressing to even contemplate, of course. When previously have millions of Americans been afraid that the federal government will attack the basic foundation of democracy itself by forcefully trying to overturn a free and fair election? We shouldn't have to have such fears, but they are all too real at this point. Donald Trump is the biggest sore loser in American history, period. He's proven that over and over again, beyond the shadow of a doubt. If the midterm elections result in Republicans losing both houses of Congress (or even just one), then Trump knows he's in for two years of lame-duck status where the biggest political news will come from all the investigations into his administration launched by Democrats.

Which is why I will end by quoting from that article by Judge Luttig, which was titled: "The Final Battle For America's Democracy." Because Luttig does not mince words and sums up the fears of millions very accurately:

Everyone knows that the greatest threat to the upcoming midterm elections is not the Democrats or the Chinese, noncitizen voting, or electronic voting machines, but the president of the United States and his servile Republican Congress.

Every member of Congress takes a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution, an oath that obligates them to honor the will of the American electorate. It is a sacred imperative that the Congress of the United States must defend our constitutional right to choose our representatives to Congress against all enemies, domestic as well as foreign, who would deny us this fundamental right.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant