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Election in United States of America - voting at the ballot box. The hand of woman putting her vote in the ballot box. Flag of USA on background.
A high ranking official alleges President Donald Trump is “trying to sow chaos” in America’s elections as he anticipates losing control of one or both congressional chambers in the upcoming midterms.
Describing his administration’s attempts to find instances of noncitizen voter fraud, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar (D) described noncitizen voting as a “red herring” and “non-issue” meant to dissuade Latinos and others from voting.
“They’re trying to sow chaos into the process so it discourages people from participating,” Aguilar alleged to The Washington Post.
By contrast, the White House defended its actions.
“The only people who should be concerned by this are criminals,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Post. “Noncitizen voting is a crime. Anyone breaking the law will be held accountable.”
According to The Post, “The Justice Department has struggled to meet White House demands to prosecute noncitizen voters as conspiracy theories that President Donald Trump and his allies have pushed in public fail to hold up legally.” In order to uncover the kind of material Trump could use to bolster his claims, Justice Department top officials regularly meet with counterparts at Homeland Security Investigations (the relevant agency at the Department of Homeland Security).
To accomplish their objectives, the Justice Department is planning on giving Homeland Security Investigation officials access to voter registration data for suspected noncitizens. They initiated that process earlier this week when Homeland Security ordered their investigations offices to review all open and closed voter fraud cases to report individuals who registered to vote before they became naturalized citizens.
“The information would come from state voter rolls, but many states have refused to give those to the Justice Department,” the Post reported. “The efforts so far haven’t yielded results, in large part because the types of rampant voter fraud that the Trump administration describes have never been found.”
Anticipating Trump’s congressional losses based on his low approval ratings and historical precedent, top officials met earlier this week to strategize turning things around with voters.
“The mood, according to one attendee, was not panicked,” reported veteran political journalist Mark Halperin for Fox News. Top officials were present including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
“Perhaps the most candid moment of the evening came when Team Trump acknowledged a central reality of this presidency: Donald Trump will do what he wants to do,” Halperin reported. “He will say what he wants to say. He will not be governed by slide decks, message matrices or pleas from Republican candidates and strategists.”
Conservative pundit Mona Charen of The Bulwark speculated that Trump’s tariffs have hurt working class voters so severely, the political damage for him may prove too challenging to overcome.
“Voters are rarely able to connect policy to outcomes, but they have done so in the case of tariffs,” Charen argued. “Back in 2024, Americans were about equally divided on the question of trade, with some favoring higher tariffs and roughly similar numbers opting for lower tariffs. Experience has changed their views.”
In light of this reality, conservative historian Robert Kagan recently expressed alarm that Trump’s talk of stopping voter fraud will in fact be an attempt to steal the 2026 midterm elections.
“I am worried, as I have said and others have been pointing out, about whether we will even have free and fair elections in 2026, let alone in 2028,” Kagan said. “I think Trump has a plan to disrupt those elections, and I don't think he's willing to allow Democrats to take control of one or both houses as could happen in a free election.”