Why Trump canât cancel the 2026 midterms, and why election experts say that fear distracts from the real risk
Why Trump canât cancel the 2026 midterms, and why election experts say that fear distracts from the real risk
Early January, President Donald Trump of canceling the 2026 midterm elections, drawing widespread attention and concern even as White House officials later dismissed the remarks as facetious.
But election experts consistently agree that Trump has neither the legal authority nor the practical ability to cancel elections. And state and local election officials consistently say they will carry out the elections theyâre legally required to run.
The election system is under real strain, and bad-faith efforts to undermine it are serious. But after talking with local election officials, lawyers, and administrators across the country, there is a lack of evidence that upcoming elections are at realistic risk of not happening at all. Elections happen because thousands of local officials follow state and local law that mandates them â and history shows theyâve done so before, even under immense pressure. The greater danger isnât no election, but one thatâs chaotic, unfairly challenged, or deliberately cast as illegitimate after the fact.
Stephen Richer, the Republican former recorder in Maricopa County, Arizona, tells that the idea that a president could simply halt or meaningfully cancel an election misunderstands how elections function on the ground. The system, he said, is âmade up of so many disparate actorsâ â thousands of local officials, courts, vendors, and administrators operating under different authorities and timelines. Even if there were a coordinated attempt to get these people not to go through with the election, âyouâve got to figure at least half of those people arenât big fans of the president, and many of the rest are on autopilot regardless of what they think of the president.â
Some election processes are fixed by law and timing. Military and overseas ballots, for example, must be sent â a deadline Richer described as âan immutable deadline, like gravity.â Any attempt to disrupt that selectively would quickly become obvious. âHow absurd would it be that one county got ballots and the next one didnât?â he said, predicting âa gazillion lawsuitsâ and court orders compelling officials to move forward.
Richer also pointed to the : more than 9,000 jurisdictions and more than 90,000 polling locations nationwide. âYou are not going around and shutting those down,â he said. He noted that even would face immediate legal challenges and injunctions, while plenty of voters would have cast ballots via other means (e.g., early or mail voting) anyway.
That assessment is echoed by David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, who speaks regularly with local election officials. Becker said nearly 1,500 local officials across 47 states have participated in his monthly informational sessions, which heâs held since Trump put out , and none of them have suggested canceling the election or violating state law.
âEvery single one of them is committed to putting on the best election they possibly can,â Becker said. Even under pressure, officials arenât signaling theyâll stop. âThey are getting it done,â he said, adding that if support doesnât come from the state, âthey will band together and do it themselves.â
But state election officials arenât backing down, either. Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, says elections will proceed as planned regardless of what Trump might say. The academics and media stars gaining popularity and attention for saying otherwise are being âdisingenuousâ and âdangerous,â he said.
Courts have also played a critical role when local officials have threatened to overstep their authority. In 2020, even light suggestions that Trump might delay the election to accommodate COVID were . After the 2020 election, that certification is not discretionary and ordered officials to and move the process forward, even amid intense political pressure.
Those same state and local laws remain in place today. Courts and election offices are also better positioned than they were four years ago, with legal strategies drafted, training in place, and judges already familiar with these arguments. Across the country, clerks and secretaries of state describe updating contingency plans, consulting attorneys, and stress-testing procedures much as they would for a natural disaster or cyberattack.
If youâre worried about what lies ahead, election officials say there are meaningful ways to respond â and that spreading fear isnât one of them. Richer said the bigger danger now is renewed distrust of election results. That distrust makes it easier for those in power to make bad-faith attempts to twist the math after votes are cast.
His advice is straightforward: âContinue being a repository for facts and truth about election administration, and kindly and sensitively inject those into conversations that you are a part of if you hear something you know to be wrong.â He added, âDonât be dismissive. It never works.â And, he said, âyou are responsible for the false information you spread.â
Aguilar said that academic voices predicting doom âdonât understand the nuancesâ of state and local law and that voters should be skeptical of them. Those who want better information should go to their local and state elections offices.
Thereâs also a risk that continually framing elections as likely not to happen â or as already lost â could have the opposite of the intended effect, discouraging participation rather than protecting democracy. People who want to get involved can sign up to be , volunteer to , offer their business or community space as a polling location, or donate to organizations preparing to defend election laws and certification in court.
Elections donât happen just because people assume they will. They happen because people â especially at the local level â show up and do the work.
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