Veteran strategists and longtime GOP political consultants are warning that President Donald Trump’s recent remarks on the integrity of U.S. elections are laying the groundwork for him disputing the results if these prove disastrous for Republicans. In addition to repeated comments on voter registration rules and his skepticism of mail-in ballots—suspended for the upcoming elections—the president said on Sunday that lengthy tallies in certain states and cities was proof that U.S. elections are rigged and “CORRUPT.” The president provided no evidence that delayed counts in the listed areas—Detroit, Michigan, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, California “and numerous other U.S. Cities and States”—was the result of manipulation or fraud.
"President Trump is right: Americans deserve to know the winner of elections on election night,” White House Spokeswoman Lauren Bis told Newsweek in a statement on Monday. But to others, Trump is already preparing to challenge the November outcome in the event of heavy losses for his party, which recent polling suggests is a strong possibility. The administration has attempted to limit the practice of voting by mail in the U.S., though the Supreme Court has curbed efforts to impose new restrictions ahead of the midterms—something Trump called a “big loss for Republicans, and America itself.” And on Monday, the president told reporters there was “a lot of cheating in vote by mail.
A lot of cheating all over.” Trump cited California as an example, which a reporter said had displayed “no evidence” of widespread fraud, to which Trump responded: “No evidence? You are fake news.” In a post to Truth Social on Saturday, however, Trump wrote that the party “must WIN the 2026 Midterm Elections” and use “every appropriate tool” including mail-in votes. Despite his skepticism, Trump also urged his supporters to vote by mail in 2024, and has himself repeatedly voted by mail.
Mike Madrid, a longtime Republican strategist and author of The Latino Century, told Newsweek that Trump’s latest remarks concerning alleged fraud in blue cities and states was an “attempt to discredit both his opposition and undermine confidence in the system. This delegitimizes his opponents.” For the first time since 2002, the U.S. has chosen not to invite Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) observers to help monitor the midterm elections, a decision the intergovernmental organization called “regrettable” and said “represents a significant departure from an established democratic practice.” This comes as the Justice Department defends plans to deploy over a thousand election monitors to polling places. In an interview with MS Now on Monday, Democratic Senator Cory Booker accused the president of sowing doubt in the integrity of U.S. elections, and of trying to “intimidate” Americans into not voting with the plan.
Madrid claimed this looked like an attempt “to create an environment where the outcome of election has enough doubt so as not to seat the next Congress.” Blanche, however, noted that the practice had been used by presidents for decades, and denied reports that the election monitors would be armed federal agents. On November 3, voters will head to the polls to decide all 435 House seats and 35 Senate contests. Republicans currently hold narrow margins in both the House and Senate, and recent polling points to Democrats flipping a number of seats next month.
Simulations by RacetotheWH—which incorporate voting patterns, polling and other indicators—gave Democrats an 88 percent chance of winning the House as of Tuesday, with 234 projected seats to the GOP's 201. The same simulations give Democrats a 73 percent chance of securing a majority in the Senate, with current expectations of a 53-47 seat split in the upper chamber. Speaking on MS Now on Monday, Republican Senator Thom Tillis believes it's “almost statistically impossible” for his party to retain control of the House, though he is optimistic the GOP can keep the Senate “by tight margin.” Jason Cabel Roe, a veteran GOP strategist and founder of the consulting firm Roe Strategic, told Newsweek on Monday that the White House will be “at a real disadvantage” if the GOP loses the House and Senate.
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