Elections

Joe Lancaster | 2.4.2026 11:15 AM

President Donald Trump suggested this week that the federal government should take over certain states' elections, in clear violation of the Constitution. It's a bad idea, just like it was a bad idea five years ago when Democrats proposed something similar.

"The Republicans should say, we want to take over—we should take over the voting in at least…15 places," Trump told conservative podcaster Dan Bongino, who until recently served as FBI deputy director. "The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting."

Trump tied the idea to his shopworn belief that the 2020 election was stolen from him, even though overwhelming evidence indicates he lost fair and square.

When asked about his comments, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump "believes in the United States Constitution" and was simply expressing his support for national voter ID legislation—a thoroughly unconvincing explanation that seems to ignore what he actually said.

Indeed, Trump doubled down hours later. "If you think about it, the state is an agent for the federal government in elections," he said in the Oval Office. "I don't know why the federal government doesn't do them anyway."

As any high school civics student knows, under America's federalist system, while the federal government sets certain overarching rules, everything else is left to the states; the idea that states merely act on behalf of the all-powerful feds is averse to the constitutional system the Founders established.

And there are very good reasons for the states to be in charge of their own elections.

"The Constitution entrusts the administration of federal elections to the........

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