Legal scholars detail ‘last line of defense’ that held up against Trump

President Donald Trump looks on as he speaks to reporters on board Air Force One, en route from West Palm Beach, Florida, to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, February 16, 2026. REUTERS Elizabeth Frantz

President Donald Trump's attempts to "put his thumb on the scale" of the midterms this year were largely unsuccessful, as two legal scholars wrote for The Hill, with one specific "last line of defense" holding up against his plan to subvert democracy.

Writing for the outlet on Sunday, legal scholar David Wippman and historian Glenn C. Altschuler explained how the Supreme Court has, over the course of recent decades, helped warp elections in a manner that makes them less likely to reflect the will of voters. They cited specific examples going back to 2010, including the Citizens United rule, which uncapped the amount of money that corporations could give to politicians, and this year's Louisiana v. Callais decision, which gutted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

Despite that corruption at the top of the legal system, lower courts have "repeatedly stood in [Trump's] way," the pair explained.

"Emboldened, no doubt, by these decisions, Trump has ignored the provision in the U.S. Constitution, which authorizes the states — not the president — to set the time, place and manner of elections, subject to laws enacted by Congress, and has repeatedly sought to impose federal control over voter registration, ballot distribution, and vote counting," they wrote. "He has been thwarted at least 34 times by federal judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents, including his own. And Trump’s Department of Justice is zero for 28 in lawsuits demanding that states provide complete voter rolls to the federal government, which critics believe the administration intended to use to compile its own list of eligible voters."

They added further: "In several decisions, judges could not be clearer about the significance of federal intervention in elections. As the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California warned this year in U.S. v. Weber, 'the taking of democracy does not occur in one fell swoop; it is chipped away piece-by-piece until there is nothing left.' The Constitution states, unequivocally, that only states and Congress have the power to regulate elections. The executive branch may enforce election laws but cannot override them. Federal judges enforced that distinction when it mattered most. Those judges deserve our gratitude."

Altschular and Wippman also argued that, despite these successful moves from lower courts, "democracy should not depend on the willingness of individual judges to resist presidential pressure based on unfounded allegations of fraud." Instead, going forward, Democrats in Congress must act with their new majorities to fix the holes in the system that have allowed Trump's corruption to flourish, including efforts to rein in "partisan gerrymandering, strengthen the Voting Rights Act, and regulate the flood of dark money into politics, even if some reforms may not be possible until a new president is elected or new justices join the Supreme Court."

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