I chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from 2011 to 2014. As the electoral arm of House Democrats, our mission was simple: win seats and defeat Republicans. We anticipated a broad range of crisis scenarios: a last-minute “dark-money dump” against one of our candidates, a smear attack, a sudden revelation in opposition research, even the exploitation of a gaffe by one of our own. I’m sure the Republican campaign committee was prepared for the same scenarios from our side.

But one thing we never envisioned was a president who seemed ready, willing, and able to subvert an election itself.

By now, the possibilities are familiar: intimidating voters by deploying ICE near polling places; disrupting an election by attempting to seize ballots; pressuring friendly officials to manipulate an outcome; or manufacturing enough chaos to claim extraordinary federal authority such as the Insurrection Act. President Trump can even try to manipulate the congressional process of seating its members in the next Congress. None is purely theoretical. In 2021, Donald Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” the precise number he needed to reverse the state’s result. His effort to block the peaceful transfer of power culminated in the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

Some dismiss the darker 2026 scenarios as far-fetched or technically impossible. Really? In what world does Donald Trump, facing a Democratic majority with subpoena power, suddenly develop a reverence for technicalities? And “far-fetched” seems almost quaint after talk of acquiring Greenland, remaking geographic names by decree, and expecting distant wars, such as in Iran, to resolve swiftly and neatly.

In fact, the administration has already tested the boundaries. The Justice Department demanded sensitive voter-registration data from nearly every state. The FBI seized ballots and other records from Fulton County, Georgia relating to the 2020 election. The administration has promoted the SAVE America Act, which would impose new identification and proof-of-citizenship requirements, and issued an executive order seeking major changes to mail voting. While supporters describe these steps as election integrity measures, critics warn that they could disenfranchise eligible voters or centralize information and authority historically held by the states. Either way, disputes are no longer hypothetical.

The most level headed predication also happens to be the most unsettling: this administration and its allies will attempt to use every tool they possess to sway the outcome of the midterms. Democratic norms will therefore depend on various institutions willing to resist such improper pressure: state and local governments, and the courts.

The problem is that some of those very institutions have been penetrated. Election deniers continue to seek offices that administer or certify elections; States United tracks both candidates and officials who have embraced election denial. Courts, for their part, have often held up against Trump’s repeated assaults to undermine elections (siding with states against federal attempts to secure voter files, for example). However, it’s simply naïve to assume that every judge, in every jurisdiction, will rule purely on principle. The judicial branch has demonstrated an ability to be quite liberal in its interpretation of Trump’s powers and authorities. A sound ruling may arrive too late, and disruption will run its damaging course.

If the endgame involves courts and state and local governments, supporters of democracy must prepare before Election Day. Already, secretaries of state and other election administrators have conducted table-top scenarios on how to respond to attempts to subvert congressional elections. This ranges from foreign interference and federal agents at polling places, to the seizure of ballots. Senate Democrats and election experts have already stress-tested responses to those instances. Unfortunately, we live in a democracy where local officials must “war game” an attack on elections by a sitting president.

Lawyers are mobilizing as well. The Elias Law Group, representing Democratic committees and congressional leaders, has already challenged Trump’s voter suppression strategy. Democrats on the House Administration Committee, which will have oversight for the seating of members, have run through their own strategies.

It's still not enough. And that’s where the citizen becomes the hero of our (hopefully) never-ending American experiment story.

We will need an informed citizenry to hold members of Congress, judges and state and local officials accountable for decisions affecting the midterm elections. Federal coercion of election officials—or theft of votes— doesn’t rank among the kitchen-table issues that ordinarily decide campaigns. That makes responsible attention essential: local reporting on suspicious changes to voting rules; vigilant eyes on emergency court proceedings; trained, nonpartisan poll workers; civic groups prepared to document intimidation without inciting chaos; knowledge on handling federal agents at polling stations. Voters must know their rights and make a plan.

Organized efforts to disrupt voting counts are not some new invention of the Trump era. Flashback to the disputed 2000 Bush vs. Al Gore presidential election. Republican operatives descended on Miami-Dade County, Florida and staged what became known as the “Brooks Brothers riot.” The participants looked less like revolutionaries and more like lawyers returning from lunch. They shouted, pounded on doors, demanding that officials stop recounting ballots. Within hours, the count was halted. Though the methods displayed on November 22, 2000 may have been less violent than those displayed two decades later on January 6, 2020, we cannot forget that the underlying strategy was familiar: inciting chaos and intimidation for political leverage.

The best defense of the 2026 election is neither panic nor complacency. It is preparation. There will need to be clear legal rules, officials trained to follow them, courts ready to act quickly, journalists committed to verification, and citizens who understand both the stakes and the limits of lawful protest. That work must begin now, in public, before a close contest turns every procedural dispute into a national emergency. Guardrails do not defend themselves. People do.