Will try to influence the elections in his favor: Donald Trump.Image: keystone
The American president wants to “nationalize” the midterm elections. What does he mean by that? Four points on how Trump intervenes in the election – and what chances of success he has with his interventions.
02/05/2026, 05:3702/05/2026, 05:37
Renzo Ruf, Washington / ch media
The next congressional elections in the USA are coming up in nine months. There is a lot at stake for Donald Trump: His Republican Party could lose its majority in the House of Representatives and Senate to the Democrats on November 3rd. The president absolutely wants to prevent that. That’s why he’s now talking about “nationalizing” the elections. With these four methods, Trump is trying to turn the results of the congressional elections in favor of the Republicans.
Trump is redrawing electoral districts
It is a natural law of American politics that the president’s party suffers a setback in the so-called midterm elections. Although Trump cannot understand why voters could be dissatisfied with his administration, in his opinion his record is flawless.
But months ago he tried to change the rules of the game for the complete redistricting of the House of Representatives – by calling on Republican-controlled states to redraw the electoral districts. This exercise usually takes place at the beginning of a new decade, when the 435 seats in the large chamber of Congress are divided among the states in proportion to their population. But the parliamentarians in right-wing strongholds like Texas didn’t care; they gave the Republicans new constituencies without planning.
What Trump did not expect, however, was that Democratic strongholds did not watch this maneuver in silence, but rather copied it. The bottom line is that the impact of Trump’s activism is limited: the seats that Republicans will win in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and perhaps Florida in November can be compensated for by Democrats in California, Utah, New York and perhaps Virginia.
Trump could intimidate left-wing voters
The next election will show whether America is still a democracy. This sentence has been heard again and again in recent months, especially in left-wing America. There is a fear that Trump wants to use the state apparatus to intimidate the Democrats’ core voters. How could this happen? For example, Trump delegates agents from the ICE migration police or the CBP border guard to “protect” polling stations in left-wing strongholds such as Minneapolis or Los Angeles.
However, such an action would not only violate applicable laws. It could also have the effect of further stimulating the already highly motivated Democratic electorate. The massive protests against ICE and CBP in recent weeks have made it clear that Trump opponents will not be discouraged – even if they have to fear for their lives.
Trump wants to take over the count
In the USA, the 50 states are responsible for organizing and conducting national elections. That’s what it says in the constitution. Trump wants to change that. He has already called on his Republicans to “nationalize” the next election. What he imagines by this is not entirely clear. On Tuesday, the president said at the White House that he wanted to take away the right to count votes from certain “corrupt” places. He named the major cities of Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta, where Democrats dominate local politics.
Such a move would trigger a flood of lawsuits because there is no legal basis for it. The federal government also simply does not have the staff to march at all polling stations.
The White House therefore claimed that the president was solely committed to ensuring that the same rules applied to voters across the country. A bill is circulating in Congress that would require ID when casting votes. That may sound somewhat reasonable, but examples from Republican-governed states show that officials primarily use such regulations to harass (legitimate) voters. Here too, Trump’s activism does not seem to be showing any results at the moment.
Trump will challenge the election results
Trump’s last trump card remains: If the Republicans lose the upcoming election, as expected, the president can question the legitimacy of this defeat. And claim that the Democrats only won thanks to fraud. A majority of Americans will not believe him. But a loud minority does; and the foundation on which the world’s oldest democracy stands is crumbling a little more.
Just one example: Trump still claims today that he didn’t lose the 2020 election. Last week, the Federal Police FBI searched the office of the local election authority in Atlanta (Georgia). And confiscated archived ballots. The suspicion: There was cheating during the vote counting. National intelligence czar Tulsi Gabbard was inexplicably present at this raid.
Such fraud would have had little impact on the outcome of the 2020 election. But Trump doesn’t care. He wants to be crowned winner in Georgia late. With this doggedness, the president could also try to overturn the results of the midterm elections after November 3rd. (aargauerzeitung.ch)