How Trump did his foes an unintentional favor

President Donald Trump, FBI Director Kash Patel and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard drew a great deal of criticism when, in late January, FBI agents searched an election center in Fulton County, Georgia — a Democratic stronghold in a swing state that Trump won in 2016 and 2024 but lost in 2020. Trump opponents complained that searching voting records from 2020 was a tremendous waste of law enforcement resources, as Trump's claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him in Georgia was repeatedly debunked. And some of the debunking came from two conservative Republicans: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

But according to Fair Fight Action CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo, that FBI search might, in one sense, be a blessing in disguise — as MAGA Republicans unintentionally reminded Democratic election lawyers that they need to get busy on protecting the 2026 midterms sooner rather than later.

Fair Fight Action is a Georgia-based voting groups founded by Stacey Abrams, former minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives and the state's gubernatorial nominee in 2018 and 2022 (she lost to Kemp by single digits both times).

During an appearance on The New Republic's "Daily Blast" podcast posted on February 12, Groh-Wargo told host Greg Sargent, "So, here is a very dark piece of good news: If this was going to happen, I'm glad it happened this early in the year, because now it is not a hypothetical. I can tell you, the elections officials, lawyers, and advocates are now getting ready much earlier to be ready for this later in the year. The courts are now attuned that this could very much happen. And we have seen time and again that the courts weigh in — in a big way — in that post-election period and shut down nonsense."

The Fair Fight Action CEO continued, "In fact, I believe Justice (Ketanji) Brown (Jackson) just went on 'The View' and said that she's very confident that the courts are going to act. So, I think we should assume they're going to try everything. I mean, they said they have — we have to believe them."

Sargent, a former Washington Post opinion columnist, described a "nightmare scenario" in which the FBI intervenes in the 2026 midterms and the vote counting is "interrupted."

Groh-Wargo responded, "That is one of the nightmare scenarios…. We all know we're dealing with a bunch of vigilante thugs here. Look at what they're doing to American citizens on the streets of Minnesota…. I mean, the bottom line is they're trying to control and block people from registering, intimidate people from voting. They're already using all that rhetoric and then trying to monkey with the count. This is autocratic behavior."