With the United States midterm elections less than two months away, there are already hints that the Republican Party could suffer big losses. All 435 members of the House of Representatives and 35 senators are up for grabs on November 3, and current polling suggests President Donald Trump could lose his Republican majority in at least one chamber of Congress.
Such a result would not be unprecedented for an election that regularly punishes the party in power. In the last five elections, at least one chamber of Congress has shifted, and in all but two midterms since WWII, the party dominating Congress has lost seats.
But the stakes of 2018 elections are elevated by Trump’s repeated signals that he might not accept the outcome if defeated. Equally disturbing have been the evident attempts of his administration in recent months to disenfranchise voters in areas of longstanding Democratic strength.
All of this makes a political crisis in November a distinct possibility, and one that the country’s checks and balances are less and less adequately prepared to deal with. Can U.S. democracy deliver as the next presidential election looms in two years?
Republicans presently control a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Democrat edge is in single digits nationally in the voter intention opinion polling, which has in the past equalled winning the majority of seats on election day.
A third impeachment may hobble what’s left of the Republicans’ legislative agenda.
This is the threat situation to Trump. Even if the Democrats win only one house of Congress, the president and his administration members face two years of Congressional investigations. These might include corporate donations and alleged “pay-to-play” deals, as well as investments by foreign sovereign wealth funds in companies tied to the Trump family.
The Supreme Court declared the president is legally immune from practically all actions, but Trump could still face a legacy-tarnishing third impeachment vote in the House. That procedure – and other Congressional hearings – may derail what’s left of the Republican legislative agenda and give a strong incentive for Trump and his circle to sabotage the election outcome.
In many ways this subversion has already begun. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election by a slim margin to Joe Biden and claimed the election was rigged and stolen. He has since regularly raised doubts about the integrity of the US political system and the potential unfairness of the approaching 2026 Congressional election.
He again alleged rampant voter fraud in the 2020 election in July, and accused China of interfering in America’s ‘dangerously exposed’ democratic system in a televised address to the nation. ‘Without free and fair elections no country can be great,’ he remarked. ‘Unfortunately, the system we have is a pathetic failure to that standard.’
Many Democrats perceive it as a ploy to erode voter confidence ahead of the midterms. Only 58% of Democrats say they expect a free and fair election in November, according to recent polling, down from 81% four years ago. Notably, the share of Republicans who think such is up from 46% to 55%.
And that Trump has not ruled out running for president in 2028 — noting lately ‘I won (the presidency) three times. Now, I’m going to do it again,” raises other constitutional questions and further undermines the status quo ante.”
Trump is also trying to undermine the election in more obvious ways. Mainly by making it tougher for Americans to vote. He has been pressuring Congress to approve the SAVE America Act since taking office, which would demand proof of citizenship to register to vote, mandate photo ID to cast a ballot and curtail postal voting. The House has enacted the measure, first in 2025 and then in 2026, but the Senate has not.
Most immediately, this would impact the estimated 9% of voting-age Americans — some 22 million people – who do not have ready access to evidence of citizenship. But by insisting on passage of the law before the election, Trump is feeding the bogus claim that thousands of unauthorised immigrants vote.
Trump is promoting the lie that lots of undocumented individuals vote.
The president has cranked up his attacks on postal voting in recent months, even as he himself has just voted by mail in Florida’s primary elections. He signed an executive order in March requiring the U.S. postal service to distribute votes exclusively to persons on a government list of eligible voters.
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This order is now before the courts. If the court rules in favour of the government, more Democrats than Republicans could be stripped of their preferred voting method (in 2022, 36% of ballots cast were by mail, 60% of which were Democrats and 38% were Republicans).
On top of this are the ongoing efforts by the Republican Party – and to a lesser extent the Democrats – to redraw congressional boundaries in their favour to assist gain seats. The cumulative effect of these redistricting campaigns could further affect the outcome of the November elections.
This interference may extend past Election Day. If the administration were to claim fraud in the first case, cooperative local officials may attempt to remove ballots or voting machines like they did in 2020. If you undermine confidence in the voting process, you could end up with a situation where the results are not known for weeks, with long recounts and appeals.
All this would severely hinder the government’s ability to function, especially if these delays carry into January, when the new Congress is expected to enter office. In the American system of democracy, it would fall to Congress and the courts to respond to such an overreach, and they’re supposed to be a counterweight to the executive branch.
But in Trump’s second term the Republican-led House and Senate have rarely criticised his actions Congress’ involvement in curtailing any effort at electoral subversion is also reduced by the fact that it will be out of session for much of the autumn.
The Justice Department would have the most far-reaching oversight left, but in recent years its independence has been called into question. Trump’s incoming Attorney General, Todd Blanche, last month when asked about the department’s promise to function independently from the White House said: ‘I’m not going to pledge that.’ His approach is at odds with the post-Watergate norm of a firewall between the Justice Department and the White House meant to ensure no political influence on criminal investigations.
The Trump administration, when confronted with adverse court decisions, has also resorted to “legalistic noncompliance” to avoid judicial mandates, like the court’s challenge to Trump’s deconstruction of the USAID.
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The Democrats’ powers to respond to election intervention are limited. If they win back at least one house of Congress in November, they might begin investigations into voter suppression by the administration. But unless Democrats win both the House and Senate, they are unlikely to pass legislation to prohibit such operations, and even if they do, Trump might veto it. The Democrats would not have the two-thirds majority in both houses needed to override him.
In any event, efforts to hold the administration accountable will likely be burdensome and go beyond the November election. Trump’s efforts to restrict and subvert voting may not succeed, but they might leave a long shadow of uncertainty over the results and erode Americans’ confidence in their democracy.
About 69% of Americans are unsatisfied with the way democracy is operating in the U.S., up from 58% in 2021.
That means worries about election integrity will likely be an energising topic for several Democratic presidential contenders in the run-up to the 2028 election. It also offers a possible difficulty for the Republican candidates for the nomination.
Vise President J.D. Vance has claimed he does not feel Trump lost the 2020 election but has also suggested that he will accept the conclusion of the 2026 election if Republicans are defeated. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has declined to say who won the 2020 election. Half of Republicans believe the 2020 election was ‘rigged’
Whatever happens in November, even the likelihood of drawn-out legal fights over the result, the shadow of doubt may affect how Republican candidates position themselves in 2028. Will promoting conspiracy theories about voter fraud by then be politically useful for the party?
Nor is the whole amount of the administration’s meddling knowable in November. But there’s little question that the Trump administration is trying to influence the outcome in a way that has never been seen in contemporary American politics. U.S. democracy might never be quite the same again.
Bruce Stokes is an Associate Fellow, U.S. and North America Program at Chatham House in London.
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