Steve Bannon calls for armed federal agents to 'surround the polls' during midterms

With Democrats having performed well in a series of late 2025 and early 2026 elections and President Donald Trump suffering from weak approval ratings in many polls, Democratic strategists are feeling cautiously optimistic about this year's midterms. But attorney and Democracy Docket publisher Marc Elias and other elections experts believe that Trump and his allies will resort to a variety of voter intimidation tactics in order to discourage Democratic turnout on Tuesday, November 3.

One concern is the possible presence of militarized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in major cities on Election Day. And MAGA Republican Steve Bannon, host of the "War Room" vodcast and former White House chief strategist in the first Trump Administration, is calling for ICE agents to make their presence felt at polling stations.

On Tuesday, February 3's "War Room," Bannon told viewers, "You're damn right we're gonna have ICE surround the polls come November. We're not gonna sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen…. Let's put you on notice again: ICE is going to be around the polls in the 2026 midterm elections."

Bannon's comments come at a time when Trump is drawing widespread criticism for seeming to imply that the federal government should take over running elections in at least 15 different states — a proposal that, MS NOW's Steve Benen argued in a February 3 opinion column, is a blatantly unconstitutional "power grab."

Bannon and other MAGA Republicans are claiming, with zero evidence, that undocumented immigrants are voting in huge numbers.

GOP fundraiser Caroline Wren, according to Newsweek reporter Khaleda Rahman, agrees with Bannon's comments. Newsweek quotes her as claiming that Democrats "don't want ICE funded because they don't want ICE at the polling stations to stop illegals from voting."

Rahman notes, "Trump has recently intensified his efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden. He has repeated disproven theories that ballots were altered or stolen and that illegal migrants were allowed to cast votes in some states that he lost. Those efforts come as the Trump Administration is turning its attention to electoral issues before the midterm elections in November, when control of Congress will be at stake. Meanwhile, the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, by immigration enforcement agents in separate incidents in Minneapolis last month have amplified scrutiny of ICE."