Washington, D.C. — A new report from the Center for American Progress highlights 15 election subversion tactics being used or threatened by the Trump administration to interfere with the election process so it can entrench power and escape accountability.
These tactics are part of an effort to stoke fear, create chaos, and pressure officials to comply, sometimes before courts can intervene. They represent corrosive democratic backsliding that threatens the people’s fundamental right to hold their leaders accountable through free and fair elections.
“The Trump administration is trying to rig the midterm elections based on the discredited myth of widespread voter fraud,” said Michael Sozan, senior fellow at CAP and co-author of the report. “But whatever subversion tactics the administration deploys, the Constitution is crystal clear that presidents have no authority over election rules, and the American people can depend on states to administer free and fair elections in November.”
This report is the third in a series documenting how the Trump administration planned and then built an imperial presidency. It documents how these actions are a hallmark of authoritarian consolidation in backsliding democracies around the world: Imperial leaders seek to entrench the political power they have grabbed by engineering favorable election outcomes.
The tactics outlined in the report include:
- Casting doubt on election integrity via disinformation to justify nationalizing elections
- Weaponizing the federal government by installing election deniers in key government positions
- Gutting key agencies and essential election security programs
- Weaponizing federal databases and demanding personal voter information from states to track or purge voters
- Issuing unconstitutional executive orders to limit voting access
- Pressuring Congress to pass legislation that would suppress eligible voters
- Sharply curtailing voting by mail
- Preventing states from using voting equipment
- Diluting voters’ power through a mid-decade gerrymandering crisis
- Using the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to intimidate election administrators
- Seizing election-related materials and voting equipment
- Threatening to deploy the military to interfere with the election
- Threatening to deploy federal agents to interfere with the election
- Threatening to declare a national emergency to take over or postpone elections
- Threatening interfering with issuance of state election certificates or pressuring the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives to block seating of duly-elected members
Read the report: “The Trump Administration Is Interfering in the 2026 Midterm Elections to Entrench the Imperial Presidency” by Michael Sozan and Ben Olinsky
Read CAP’s previous reports on Trump’s imperial presidency:
For more information, or to speak with an expert, please contact Sam Hananel at [email protected].