The second Trump administration is systematically eroding the institutional foundations of competitive elections without formally abolishing them. They have a plan to achieve what scholars of democratic backsliding call “electoral subversion”: changing electoral rules in their favor. Protectors of democracy must have a counter-plan of their own.

The White House’s approach to electoral subversion has multiple fronts. The administration has rewarded those who used violence to disrupt the last transfer of power, disabled the federal agencies charged with protecting election integrity, moved to extend executive control over voter registration, and threatened to withhold terrorism prevention funding from states who do not change their voting rules.

Donald Trump continues to claim without proof that the election system is rigged. This discrediting allows officials to justify changing rules to subvert how free and fair the elections will be. In this effort, the federal government has allies. Allied state legislatures have moved to give themselves greater control over election certification. This erodes the independence of electoral monitoring.

The logic of each move is the same: to narrow the field of who votes, who counts and who wins. The president’s own words confirmed what the policy record already showed. In January 2026, he told Reuters: “When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”

These are not isolated incidents or careless words. They point toward a coherent plan for electoral subversion.

Electoral subversion is common among illiberal presidents who begin to lose electoral competitiveness. Presidents who respect democracy confront electoral decline by adjusting public policies to try to align them with the preferences of the electorate. Illiberal presidents confront electoral decline by adjusting electoral rules. This administration and its allies seem to be mostly choosing the........

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