Trump Reshapes Midterm Election Rules in Unprecedented Push

President Donald Trump is leveraging the full power of the executive branch — including the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Postal Service, and intelligence agencies — to reshape election rules ahead of the 2026 midterm elections in what critics describe as an unprecedented assertion of executive authority over a process constitutionally administered by the states. According to a comprehensive analysis by The New York Times, these efforts span six major categories: nationalizing elections, tightening voting restrictions, pushing mid-decade redistricting, cutting election security, undermining faith in the electoral system, and punishing those who have worked against election denialism.

The Scope of Executive Action

Trump has signed two executive orders on elections — one in March 2025 requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register and mandating mail ballots be returned by Election Day, and another in March 2026 seeking to create state-by-state citizenship lists and restrict mail ballot use. Both were largely blocked by courts, which found that the orders clearly violated the separation of powers and exceeded the president’s authority.

Despite these legal setbacks, the administration has pressed forward. The Justice Department began demanding complete voter files from every state — the largest such collection effort in history — and has sued at least 30 states and territories that have resisted. The DOJ has lost at least 10 lawsuits and one federal appeal so far, but election officials fear the battle over voting records may be used in a post-election effort to challenge or discredit midterm results.

Mail-In Ballot Battle

On July 1, 2026, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan blocked the Postal Service from implementing a Trump order nationwide that would have allowed USPS to refuse delivery of mail ballots in states that did not turn over voter rolls. As Fox News reported, Sullivan ruled that the proposed rule violated a 2020 settlement agreement with the NAACP governing the “monitoring and timely delivery of Election Mail.”

Mid-Decade Redistricting

Perhaps no strategy has been more explicitly designed to prevent a midterm loss than the mid-decade redistricting push. Trump and his allies encouraged Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri to redraw their congressional maps, netting seven new Republican-leaning districts. After the Supreme Court weakened a key component of the Voting Rights Act in April 2026, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama followed with new maps eliminating Democratic-held seats. The Virginia Supreme Court also struck down a Democratic gerrymander, eliminating four Democratic-leaning districts.

Election Security Gutted

The administration has weakened the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), terminated the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, and ended threat intelligence sharing with state and local officials. The number of lawyers in the DOJ’s voting-rights section has dropped from approximately 30 under the Biden administration to single digits after resignations, cuts, and reassignments.

Undermining Faith in Elections

Trump continues to refuse to concede the 2020 election and has used the White House to legitimize debunked conspiracy theories. His administration seized voting machines from Puerto Rico, issued subpoenas for 2020 election records in Maricopa County, Arizona, and demanded 2024 records from Wayne County, Michigan. On his first day back in office, he granted clemency to nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Retribution and Election Deniers in Government

The administration has purged FBI agents and prosecutors who worked on January 6 investigations, revoked security clearances from dozens of officials, and opened investigations into perceived enemies. Trump has also installed numerous election deniers across the White House, Justice Department, Defense Department, and DHS.

Analysis and Implications

Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, told the Times: “The point of so much of this campaign is not actually to change policy because they know they don’t actually have the authority to change policy. It’s to inject distrust and confusion into our elections, both to discourage people from participating and to lay the groundwork for calling elections into question after the fact.”

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson defended the administration’s actions, stating: “President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered noncitizen voters.”

What to Watch

Multiple legal battles are working their way through the courts, and the conservative-leaning Supreme Court could ultimately rule on the constitutionality of Trump’s executive orders. The SAVE America Act — which would require photo ID and proof of citizenship to vote — remains stalled in the Senate, where Republicans lack the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster. The mid-decade redistricting efforts alone have netted Republicans at least seven new House seats, potentially enough to determine control of Congress in November.