The partisan battle over midterm elections is heating up in Washington, D.C., with accusations flying that both sides are trying to rig the outcome in November.
Republicans are trying to hold on to their majority in both chambers, while Democrats are trying to pounce on sluggish legislating, infighting and rising costs in their quest to take over the House, Senate or both.
And President Donald Trump is already accusing Democrats of election interference months before Election Day.
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“The Democrats are totally unhinged, and we will not allow them to threaten the integrity of our Elections,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democrats recently launched a “free and fair elections task force” that would recruit the likes of former Attorney General Eric Holder and Marc Elias, who Trump charged was “a terrible lawyer with a horrible track record.”
“Palestinian Chuck Schumer is hiring Eric Holder, famous for handing guns to Mexican cartels under the Barack Hussein Obama administration, as part of a Democrat-led ‘Election Integrity Group’ that will no doubt try to suppress Republican voters, and interfere in our Elections,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Schumer and Senate Democrats debuted the elections task force as Republicans struggle to move forward on voter ID and citizenship verification legislation, and on the heels of the Supreme Court’s redistricting decision that is expected to further crank up the redistricting arms race across the country.
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“Donald Trump and the Republicans realize that if the election were held fairly, that the likelihood is that they would lose, and we would win, that we would take back the House, take back the Senate,” Schumer said.
“So they are doing all kinds of nefarious things, some of them legal, some of them not so legal, to try and overturn a fair result in an election,” he continued.
Schumer described the task force’s mission as seeking out “election threats,” including actions at the administrative level by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), attacks on the First Amendment, foreign threats and militarization of law enforcement at the polls.
Trump countered that in the 2024 election cycle, Republicans mounted an “Election Integrity Army in every single State to preserve the sanctity of each legal vote.”
“We will be doing the same again in 2026, but it will be much bigger and stronger,” Trump said. “All Americans should have their voices be heard by casting a vote. Be assured this Election will be fair!”
Its inception is in response to what Democrats say is a “comprehensive effort” by Trump and his administration to undermine the upcoming election, particularly through efforts to pass the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act.
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Trump has strongly pushed Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act, which would create federal voter ID laws, require proof of citizenship to register to vote and share information on voter rolls with DHS. Democrats say the legislation would disenfranchise millions of Americans.
But Republicans aren’t unified behind the legislation. The SAVE America Act, or a version of it pushed by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., failed last month when four Republicans joined Democrats to kill it.
He has also called on Republicans to nationalize elections, and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin didn’t rule out sending federal immigration agents to polling places in the fall during his confirmation hearing earlier this year.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt earlier this year pushed back against whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents would head to the polls come November, and said “that’s not something I’ve ever heard the president consider.”
“I haven’t heard the president discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations,” Leavitt said.
It’s part of what Democrats charge is a concerted effort to tip the scales in the upcoming elections.
“Donald Trump doesn’t think he did too much in 2020 to steal the election,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said. “He thinks he did too little, and so that’s why you are seeing, already, a comprehensive effort to try to rig and steal the fall election.”