Trump has the midterms in his sights. We must be vigilant

With last week’s passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” followed by Donald Trump’s elaborate signing ceremony on July 4, media chatter has turned to how the legislation might affect the Democrats’ prospects in the next year’s midterm elections.

Polling shows the bill is very unpopular, building some confidence among Democrats that they will be able to exploit the advantage typically enjoyed by the minority party in the midterms and at least win the House of Representatives. And with North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis’ abrupt retirement in response to Trump’s threats to take him out if he refused to vote for the bill, even winning the Senate looks somewhat less remote than it did before last week.

Trump himself is quite unpopular as well. The latest Quinnipiac poll found his approval rating is underwater, with 41 percent approving of his job performance as president and 54 percent disapproving. Data journalist G. Elliott Morris points out that Trump’s numbers on his mass deportations scheme are lower than they are on the economy — and those numbers are in the dirt. Although anything is possible in this surreal political environment, it’s hard to imagine these figures will materially improve.

But in a speech in Iowa on July 3, Trump declared his intention to campaign on the bill. “I think we’ll use it in the campaign that’s coming up — the midterms, because we’ve got to beat them,” he said of Democrats. “But all of the things that we’ve given and they wouldn’t vote, only because they hate Trump — but I hate them too. You know that? I really do. I hate them.”

He might want to rethink that strategy. Everything in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — from nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid to severe cuts to food benefits — is pretty much guaranteed to make Trump’s numbers worse, even though some of the most calamitous provisions are conveniently not set to really kick in until after the election. But with the ongoing tariffs drama, and all the chaos and destruction meted out by the ill-fated Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) disaster, people will certainly be feeling the effects of his carnage. The gangs of armed and masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) marauders will only be more active as billions are pumped into their coffers.

But remember: Trump is a man with an unprecedented track record of trying to overturn elections. There was a time when many Americans thought his behavior following the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was so egregious that he should be prosecuted and, at the very least, never be allowed near elective office again. Those days are long past, and Trump’s return to the presidency has emboldened him.

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While his decimation of any semblance of Justice Department independence is troubling, it’s downright spine-chilling when it comes to elections. He now has a very eager and accommodating attorney general in Pam Bondi, and her top staff are all Trump’s personal lawyers. Together, they have purged anyone who might say no to him.

In his July 4 speech given from the White House balcony overlooking the South Lawn, Trump declared the need for “strong borders and elections.” And then he made an ominous comment: “And my people have promised me that we’re gonna make sure [the elections are] not rigged, that they’re not sullied.”

Back in March, he signed an executive order requiring voters to present proof of citizenship to vote and all ballots to be received by election day, not simply postmarked as many states allow. He also called on states to share voter lists and prosecute election crimes, threatening to pull federal funding if they refuse. Ostensibly to prevent fraud, he ordered states to cease using barcode or QR code in the vote counting process, which would bar many jurisdictions from using voting machines. Trump and his minions fatuously insisted this was being done to restore faith in the electoral process — faith that was shaken by his “Big Lie.”

While these orders are being challenged in court, the Justice Department is following up anyway. Bondi recently demanded that the Colorado Secretary of State turn over “all records” relating to 2024 federal elections, as well as preserve any records that remain from the 2020 election — a mammoth request apparently related to the prosecution of a Republican elected official who was convicted of election crimes and who Trump has called a “political prisoner.”

Last week, the New York Times reported that the Justice Department is considering charging election officials with a federal crime if they believe the officials have not adequately protected their computer systems. That’s been one of Trump’s hobby horses since 2020, when he accused voting machine companies of allowing their machines to be hacked on Joe Biden’s behalf. (You may recall that canard cost Fox News a whole lot of money when they repeated Trump’s lies.)

All of this was foreshadowed by Project 2025, which laid out plans to create unprecedented federal interference in the way elections are managed. Based on Trump’s behavior and how closely he and the administration are following the Project 2025 blueprint, it’s not paranoid to expect, at minimum, court challenges to midterm election results in races that would shift the balance of power. And I wouldn’t bet too much money on the courts being as straightforwardly dismissive as they were the last time. If they are, the Republicans will appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court — just as they do everything else these days — and we might not know who won until the 2028 presidential election is already underway.

The midterms are only 16 months away, which is both a short time and an eternity. When it comes Trump’s thirst for absolute power and penchant for corruption makes it clear: Vigilance is a necessity.