In Donald Trump’s mind, elections anywhere, in America or around the world, have only two possible outcomes: victory for him, his party, and whomever he regards as a friend or ally, or a fraudulently stolen result. He famously took the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis after refusing to accept defeat in 2020. He made claims of Democratic ballot-box stuffing after the 2018 and 2022 midterms. Even when he won his breakthrough victory in 2016, he argued (without a shred of evidence) that Hillary Clinton’s popular vote victory was the result of millions of “illegal votes.” His bizarre boasts of a landslide victory in 2024 also depend on the false theory that his opponents massively cheated.

A Washington Post analysis this week found “nearly 300 statements in speeches, in press remarks and online that question the integrity of elections” by Trump during his second term. He has signaled repeatedly that barring radical changes in voter rolls and voting methods, the 2026 midterm elections will be fatally tainted. He said that “we won’t have a Country any longer” if Congress did not pass his SAVE America Act, which would have federalized election administration overnight and imposed stringent new voter ID requirements along with restrictions on voting by mail. The bill was not passed, but that was just one of many, many steps Trump has taken and will yet take to avoid and reverse any adverse 2026 election results. Here’s an overview of what’s happened and what to watch out for.

What Trump has already tried and failed to do

Aside from the SAVE America Act, Trump has been battling since regaining the presidency to insert the federal government into constitutionally assigned state and local election administrations by executive order. A March 2025 EO sought to impose new proof-of-citizenship requirements and ban receipt of mail ballots after Election Day; it was knocked down by the U.S. Supreme Court in June of 2026. A March 2026 EO sought to set up a scheme whereby the U.S. Postal Service would refuse to deliver mail ballots to voters not certified by the Trump administration as eligible to vote. That too was struck down by SCOTUS in September of 2026, partly because of the proximity of the midterms and partly because only states and Congress can regulate elections.

Most recently, a federal judge has blocked Trump administration efforts to force California to reject mail ballots cast by voters it deems possible noncitizens (based on dubious federal data). The administration is now making a similar demand of the state of Washington, which is also likely to be rejected by the courts.

The administration also attempted a preemptive strike on Alaska’s certification of its........

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