TRUMP’S PLAN B FOR THE MIDTERMSThe GOP aims to keep control of the Senate by disqualifying voters in Democratic precincts
It turns out, as Republican political leaders have learned, that the Supreme Court’s shadow docket ruling last month allowing states to use a federal database aimed at tracking down the immigration status of potential voters seeking certain benefits is not going to have a significant effect on next month’s congressional elections. Federal law provides for a three-month “quiet period” before elections in which, as the New York Times puts it, major changes to states’ voter rolls cannot be made. So here comes the GOP’s Plan B, which still depends on election deniers who have been voted into office in states with contested Senate seats that could decide the fate of Trump’s last two years in office. I was told that the targets, in terms of putting election deniers to work, are now limited to five states where a few thousand votes could make the difference in the political makeup of the Senate: Ohio, Texas, Alaska, Iowa, and Kansas. The election counting machinery in each state is now in the control of elected Republican voting officials who are Trump supporters. In two other states, Georgia and North Carolina, Republican candidates are in trouble and Democratic candidates are comfortably ahead in polling. “If the election is close,” one insider explained to me, “you would only have to disqualify as few as seven thousand voters” in primarily Democratic precincts “to change the outcome.” One thought now, I was told, is to call on election deniers in the toss-up states to find ways to use existing federal data, verified or not, to challenge thousands of votes in key Democratic precincts. (Trump said yesterday that he would not rule out invoking the Insurrection Act around the midterms, if he deems it necessary. Let us call that Plan C.) It was further explained that a main target would be provisional ballots, which all states are required to use since the Help America Vote Act became law in 2002. The law, as explained by a report by the MIT Election Lab, provides provisional ballots to voters who are convinced they are properly registered to vote but whose names do not appear on local voter registration lists on election day. The completed ballot is placed in an envelope and not validated until after election day, if it is determined that the voter is eligible. According to a 2024 federal survey, more than 1.7 million provisional ballots were issued nationwide in the 2024 presidential election and a quarter of them were rejected. The MIT Election Lab report notes that “because provisional ballots are processed after elections” they become “the easy target of litigation” and “an easy target of controversy” during recounts. Enter the White House and its election operatives, who have come up with what is thought to be a winning small-ball strategy to hold the Senate for the president. In bitterly contested Ohio, for example, the most recent polls show the Democrat Sherrod Brown running narrowly ahead of Senator Jon Husted, a Republican who was appointed to the Senate when JD Vance took office as vice president in 2025. The current secretary of state in Ohio is Frank LaRose, a Trump supporter who has moved to the right on many issues, including election fraud. It is senior Trump supporters and conservative secretaries of state like LaRose, I have been told, who will be pressured in close senate races this November to find a way to disqualify large numbers of absentee ballots in Democratic voting districts. It is a political reality, the insider told me, “that Trumpist election deniers were elected to office in Republican-leaning states, where results are likely to hinge on a few thousands of voters. “There used to be a time when voters chose the candidate,” the insider said. “Now it is the politicians who choose the voters.” Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy Seymour Hersh, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe. © 2026 Seymour Hersh |
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