One day after the Supreme Court let stand a lower court order blocking President Donald Trump’s effort to sabotage voting by mail in the 2026 midterm elections, Democratic lawmakers and allies rallied supporters to respond to the president’s attempted assault on elections at the ballot box while warning of further threats to come.

“Right now we’re facing a clear and present danger to our democracy because Donald Trump is working every day to try to rig the elections,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said at a rally on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. Adding, “We need to shut him down in the courts and we need to shut down by having a huge turnout in our elections.”

The rally followed the Supreme Court’s decision Monday night to uphold a temporary block on a Trump rule that would have let the Postal Service refuse delivery of certain mail ballots. Election officials from both parties had stated that the rule was impossible to administer before the Nov. 3 election and would have led to millions of people potentially being disenfranchised. Some 36 million people voted by mail in the 2024 elections, with Democrats using mail voting at higher rates than Republicans in recent elections. The move to restrict mail voting was widely seen as an effort by Trump to tilt the upcoming midterm vote in favor of Republicans.

While this most imminent danger is now in the rearview window, Democrats warned that Trump will continue to try to rig elections in his favor and that voters need to remain vigilant and turn out in big enough numbers to swamp his autocratic efforts.

“We want to be in the situation where we have such a robust rejection of this authoritarian takeover that no other president will ever try to do what he’s trying to do right now,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said at the rally on Tuesday.

Over the past two years, Trump has attempted in numerous ways to exert unprecedented control over elections — often in ways that could rig or sabotage the election in the Republican Party’s favor. He has tried to mandate voters show proof of citizenship at the polls, direct states which voting machines they can use, limit when mail ballots can be sent out and received, create a federal voter registry, take the power to purge voters and directed the Postal Service to not deliver mail ballots unless states follow his orders. All of these efforts have been blocked by the courts.

But Trump’s rhetorical and policy attacks on the midterms have continued to escalate as his popularity has plummeted due to record-low approvals for his policies from immigration to the cost of living to the Iran War. His unpopularity and the ongoing rise in gas prices spurred by the war is an ever-growing anchor around the necks of Republicans with just weeks to go before the election. That means Trump may try again to interfere in the elections.

“They prefer to rig the rules instead of changing a policy platform that is failing the American people,” Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-N.J.) said at the Capitol Hill rally.

One immediate concern for Democrats is that the administration’s ultimately failed efforts to meddle in the elections may confuse voters who don’t know whether they can still vote by mail or have to show proof of citizenship at the polls.

“The single greatest danger after yesterday is that voters are confused by all of this,” Norm Eisen, former ambassador to the Czech Republic and ethics adviser to President Barack Obama, said on a press call on Tuesday. “And we need to remind them that it’s business as usual.”

Further efforts to undermine the elections could come in the form of disruptions from ICE or other law enforcement at the polls, seizures of ballots before they are cast or the disenfranchisement of citizens improperly flagged by the administration as noncitizens.

FBI director Kash Patel faced questions from Democratic senators on Tuesday over whether law enforcement would be deployed at the polls. He affirmed that they would not. Patel was also asked by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) whether he would abide by longstanding agency policy to not investigate potential election fraud until the election results are “certified, and all recounts are concluded.” Patel responded that he would.

Voters, particularly Democrats, are concerned about the Trump administration interfering in the midterm elections. Forty percent of voters expect immigration enforcement officers to show up at polling locations, according to a UC-San Diego study conducted in early September. Sixty-seven percent of Californians are concerned about Trump interfering in their elections, according to an August UC-Berkeley study. An April poll conducted by States United Democracy Center found 49% worried that Trump would seize ballots.

Meanwhile, the question of identifying supposed noncitizen voters ahead of time is now before the Supreme Court, as the administration petitioned the court on Sept. 9 to stay a lower court decision blocking the Department of Homeland Security from using Social Security Administration data to enable bulk searches of voter rolls for supposed noncitizens.

If the court rules for the administration, it could turbocharge the agency’s “Unlawful Voter Initiative” to search for noncitizen voters and flag them ahead of the midterm election. A whistleblower report released Monday alleged that the initiative is rushed, potentially illegal and is likely to improperly flag U.S. citizens as noncitizens, threatening their ability to vote.

By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.