On 16 July 2026, President Donald Trump delivered a speech he had billed as the definitive statement on the upcoming midterm elections in November. 

Election Fraud Resurrected

During his speech, Trump reiterated his charge that the 2020 elections were “stolen” from him, claiming to have documents whose

“disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible. Hundreds of millions of U.S. voter files are in the hands of foreign governments. Our machines and ballot-counting systems are exposed to hacking and manipulation and corruption.” 

This assertion is patently ridiculous. How did he win the 2024 elections if this is taken at face value? Trump also said,

“China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections. Evidence of fraud has been buried. Hundreds of thousands of noncitizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls, and yet we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail.”

There is no proof whatsoever that any foreign governments—including China—have “meddled” in U.S. elections to change any votes or distort election procedures. If, however, Trump is talking about lobbying on behalf of foreign states influencing elections, there is one standout—Israel. The lobby group the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) openly funds or campaigns against candidates on the basis of their political loyalty to Israeli interests.

If there is no new “evidence” Trump can put forward to substantiate these tired claims, why try to resurrect them now? Trump is in fact preparing the political groundwork in the likely event the November mid-terms don’t go his way. By reviving the narrative of election fraud now, Trump can more easily deploy it in November should the Republicans lose the slim majorities they have in both houses of the Congress (or one of them), claiming that these most recent elections were similarly “stolen.”

Polling for Disaster

All polls show his policies are deeply unpopular with the majority of voters, and that in key races, Democrats will likely win and have enough seats to gain a slim majority in the House of Representatives and probably the Senate too—if the elections are fair.

The primary issue affecting voters is the state of the economy. Trump’s approval ratings have been driven down to about 30 percent—his core revanchist base—by a series of inflationary policies including sweeping tariffs and the deeply unpopular war on Iran. This metastasising unpopularity is dragging down Trump’s sycophantic MAGA Republicans along with him as they hurtle towards their November reckoning.

Furthermore, despite Trump winning the votes of the white chauvinist workers in the 2024 election, even among those he is losing ground. The economic squeeze on all workers from inflation caused by Trump’s policies is something these workers are increasingly coming to recognise, and Trump is less and less able to blame it on Democrats or immigrants.

Voter Suppression

Rather than win back voters, the Trump administration is instead attempting to avert electoral defeat by reducing Democratic votes. Trump has been aided in this by two recent decisions from the far-right majority of the Supreme Court.

One Court decision gutted the last remaining clause of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, won by the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the former slave states of the South, the revolution of the Civil War and Reconstruction established citizenship and voting rights of the Black former slaves, among other amendments to the Constitution abolishing slavery. At the end of Reconstruction, a counter-revolution developed that by 1890 had consolidated Jim Crow segregation, which in one or another guise took away Black voting rights in the South. A central demand of the civil rights movement was to win Black voting rights in these states. The Supreme Court’s recent decision allows the Southern states to again take away Black political representation by redrawing election districts to have Republican majorities.

The second recent Supreme Court decision allowed the President to take control of all the independent federal agencies. One of these was the Election Assistance Commission, a bipartisan independent agency tasked with certifying voting systems and helping local election officials. Trump used this ruling to dismantle the Commission.

His most egregious effort to limit those who can vote has been the attempt to pass a law that only those who can prove their citizenship at voting sites with birth certificates or passports are able to cast their votes. Many people do not have their birth certificate readily available, as they very seldom require it. Most do not have passports. This is especially true of people who do not live off their wealth but must work. In all of this, it is the poor and marginalised who would be disenfranchised, and in the US’s racist social formation this is to target the oppressed ethnic minorities, particularly the African-American and Hispanic communities.

Women who have used their married names to register to vote, which is different from their name on birth certificates, will now be excluded unless they re-register. The transgender community are similarly impacted, although under the Trump administration they face increasing difficulties obtaining the correct documents.

But this law has been stymied in the Senate by a few Republicans joining the Democrats in opposing it, much to Trump’s dismay. This is just one of Trump’s attempts to have the federal government take over the functioning of elections, which the Constitution reserves for the states.

Another attempt is being pursued by the  Department of Justice (DOJ), which has sued at least 30 states to turn over their voting rolls to the feds, so they can try to remove anyone they want. Half have refused, and the DOJ is threatening them with prosecutions.

Trump has also singled out voting by mail to be curtailed. Voting by mail is the choice of many who have difficulty getting to polling stations due to working (the polls are open on a working day—Tuesday), health problems, etc. Mail-in voting skews decisively towards the Democrats over the Republicans. Again, this measure disproportionately impacts workers. Further, the Post Office is threatening to withhold delivery of mail-in votes in states that do not turn over their voting rolls to the feds.

Finally, Trump has said he will deploy armed ICE agents to oversee voting, which will significantly limit the votes of immigrants, and even US citizens of non-European descent, whether born in the US or not, who correctly fear they could be grabbed. ICE has proved their reputation as Trump’s stormtroopers, and their presence is likely to frighten away voters, especially from vulnerable communities.

The aim of these and other restrictions is to reduce votes among those who generally vote Democratic, like workers, the African-American and Hispanic communities, the queer community, and women who support the right to control their bodies – like the right to choose abortion.

What if the Republicans lose?

Trump’s 21 July speech shows he is concerned the Republicans will lose their slim majority in Congress in November in spite of his efforts, and he is preparing to declare the elections were stolen and invalid. So, we must consider the possible worst-case scenario. What did Trump do after he claimed that the 2020 election was stolen?

In the period before he was replaced by Biden in early 2021, Trump attempted to overturn the election by organising the violent January 6 attack on Congress by his supporters, aiming to prevent Congress from approving the election results.

This time he has consolidated full control of the entire executive branch of the US state apparatus and developed ICE into a presidential para-military force. He might unleash much more violence and stage a coup to put himself in charge not only as the authoritarian which he already is, but as a dictator, perhaps with some bourgeois-democratic fig leaves.

We must prepare now for any possible outcome by organising the mass of people – the working class and the oppressed ethnic minorities, women, Queer people and others – to fight back against Trump’s harmful and unpopular policies, including the war on Iran. This will be the best preparation to face the worst case.