Trump doesn’t need to rely on legally dubious tricks to steal the midterms

With Democrats having enjoyed a series of double-digit victories in late 2025 and early 2026 elections and President Donald Trump suffering from weak approval ratings in countless polls, many Democratic strategists are feeling cautiously optimistic about November's midterms and their chances of retaking at least one branch of Congress. But at the same time, Trump's opponents also fear he will do something underhanded to steal the midterms — be it using U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to intimidate voters or using legal challenges to throw out legitimate votes for Democratic candidates.

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on February 17, journalist/author and political science professor Nicholas Grossman urges Democrats to be vigilant about the midterms without panicking. And Grossman, who teaches at the University of Illinois, lays out a variety of ways in which Trump-backed GOP candidates could compete in the midterms without resorting to overtly illegal tactics.

"Vigilance is warranted, but excessive fear plays into the authoritarians' hands," Grossman argues. "This is not a call for complacency. Backsliding from democracy into authoritarianism is greased by people saying, 'Calm down, it’ll be fine, the institutions will handle it, he doesn't mean it, someone will stop him.' I'm not doing that. But I think it's important to right-size worries, to focus on what could realistically happen rather than lose time and expend attention and resources worrying about what can't…. The Trump regime's desire for domination is bottomless, but its capacity is not."

With Trump, Grossman observes, the "larger pattern" has involved using "existing mechanisms" rather than resorting to illegal means.

"Since Donald Trump first took office in January 2017," Grossman explains, "there have been two midterms, five off-year elections, and numerous special elections, and he's never really gone to the mat for anyone but himself. He lies and cries fraud a lot, but most vociferously for himself — even when he wins — and he went way beyond legal means only in 2020/21, attempting a coup after losing reelection. But as some will note, he did regain power despite how January 6 turned out."

Grossman continues, "Yes, exactly — he regained power by availing himself of legitimate mechanisms: winning the GOP nomination via primaries, then winning the Electoral College, plus a plurality in the popular vote. He didn't somehow go around the election or invent a different mechanism to become president."

The University of Illinois political science professor acknowledges that the "second Trump Administration is less constrained than the first," using "more authoritarian control." But he stresses that Trump is trying to "manipulate the midterms in his favor" via "existing mechanisms" — namely "partisan gerrymandering."

"There's a good chance that all this partisan gerrymandering will be a wash, and that even if Republicans max out their gains, a swing of four won't matter," Grossman writes. "Remember that in the 2018 midterms during Trump's first term, Democrats gained 41 House seats. If there was a 'steal midterms' button Trump could press, Republicans wouldn't have bothered with the gerrymandering push."

Grossman continues, "Any election manipulation Trump attempts can be overwhelmed by big voting margins. That includes gerrymandering, where Republicans may have spread themselves too thin for a political environment less favorable than 2024. A blue wave that swings the House by anything close to 40 seats and puts the Senate in play would be impossible to stop…. The vote is going to happen in November, and all signs point to Republican losses."