Midterms 2026: “Trump is ready to do anything to take control of the electoral process”
“We can never again witness another stolen election.” In a 25-minute speech addressed “to the Nation” on Thursday July 16, Donald Trump once again reiterated his accusations of electoral fraud during the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
The Republican notably declassified documents on Thursday intended to prove that China had interfered in the 2020 election for the benefit of the former Democratic president. Donald Trump thus accused Beijing of having carried out “the largest electoral data hacking operation in history, resulting in China’s illicit obtaining of 220 million American voter files”. However, several reports, including some from the country’s main intelligence agencies, have repeatedly denied any foreign interference in the voting results.
Behind these accusations, the challenge for Donald Trump is to make people believe in a new risk of foreign interference and internal fraud for the mid-term elections which will be held in November. This ballot – in which all American voters participate – must elect the 435 members of the House of Representatives, a third of the 100 senators, two thirds of the governors, and local elected officials.
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“Through this speech, Donald Trump shows that he is ready to do anything to take control of the electoral system,” warns Scott Lucas, specialist in American politics at University College Dublin. The American president notably urged Republican elected officials in Congress to adopt the “Save America Act”, a bill imposing new requirements in terms of voter identification and citizenship.
The text, adopted in the House of Representatives, remains blocked for the moment in the Senate. But if passed, it could keep 21 million voters out of the vote, according to a University of Maryland study.
Mobilize against the “enemy within”
Because with a popularity rating of 37% according to an Ipsos poll for the Washington Post, Donald Trump is far from being in a strong position for the midterms. The Republicans could thus lose their majority in both houses of Congress. “If the 20% of Maga (Make America Great Again) voters will support it, there is a risk that the 15% of traditional Republicans will do not go to vote”, underlines Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, lecturer at Sciences Po, specialist in the United States and author of the work “Les Mots de Trump” (ed. Dalloz, 2025).
For the doctor of American civilization, the anger displayed by Donald Trump in his speech therefore also aims to mobilize his electorate. The billionaire thus attacked the “crooked bureaucrats” responsible, according to him, for having betrayed him in 2020 by allowing China’s interference in these elections. “Donald Trump’s rhetoric is based on conflict. By trying to convince his voters that they must fight the political adversary as an ‘internal enemy’, he hopes to mobilize them to vote,” summarizes Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy.
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Cover image: © France 24
But more than mobilizing for victory, the American president is above all preparing his camp to contest a potential defeat in the midterms. “Donald Trump is still trying to replace the truth with his own story,” says Scott Lucas. “By reusing this old narrative according to which the defeat of 2020 does not exist, Donald Trump wants to convince his camp that a defeat in 2026 is also impossible,” he adds. In other words: if the Maga camp loses in the midterms, it will be because the elections were corrupted.
Donald Trump gets this rhetoric from Todd Blanche, the president’s former lawyer and now Minister of Justice. “He taught him to never admit defeat,” recalls Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy. The ex-lawyer notably defended him during the 2024 criminal trial, where Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsification of documents in the context of the Stormy Daniels affair.
Threats to the electoral system
But this discourse is beginning to show its limits. Faced with the controversial nature of the expected announcements, several major channels such as NBC and ABC decided not to broadcast his speech live. CBS, which initially refused to broadcast the speech before backtracking, ultimately stopped the broadcast midway through.
“A rare decision, NBC and ABC have both said that they will not broadcast this speech. (…) They, and other media, are part of a conspiracy. They want to continue this fraud. (…) Fraud like this should mean the withdrawal of their licenses”, attacked, in retaliation, Donald Trump, who called for the withdrawal of their broadcasting licenses.
According to Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, the decision of these media can be explained above all by a latent “weariness” in the face of the “obsessions” of the American president, who is putting back on the table a defeat that occurred six years ago. “Even the Maga want to move on,” he concludes.
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However, the American president’s conspiratorial attitude is worrying a few months before the midterms. To be adopted in the Senate, the “Save America Act” must obtain the votes of a majority of 60 senators, which remains unlikely between now and the November elections. But this is only one lever among others to get our hands on the holding of these elections.
“The threat to the electoral system is very real,” underlines Scott Lucas, for whom Donald Trump will not stop at wanting to pass this law. “If the ‘Save America Act’ does not pass before the elections, Donald Trump will seek to convince his camp that he absolutely must take control of this election.”
Same observation with Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy. “Donald Trump will try to control these elections at all levels, and in particular at the level of the States, which are in charge of these elections,” he recalls. The specialist cites in particular the risk of seeing Donald Trump put pressure on voters for the benefit of the Maga camp, initiating conflicts and contesting the results.
