Since his loss in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump has been diligently working to undermine the American electoral system. The events that occurred on January 6th are the most apparent examples of Trump’s efforts to attack the legitimacy of the voting systems America has in place. Among the variety of claims, President Trump argued that non-U.S. citizens have illegally registered to vote, mail-in ballots are subject to fraud, and that voting machines are susceptible to cyberattacks. His constant questioning of election validity can only make one wonder: what is President Trump’s end goal? Since his second month in office, the President has been implementing executive orders that fundamentally change how the American electoral system functions. Trump’s most recent attempts to change the electoral system demonstrate his will to employ federal power in order to reshape institutional rules for his own political gain, a pattern that is exemplified through Levitsky and Ziblatt’s warning signs of democratic erosion and Bermeo’s concept of strategically manipulating elections.

In How Democracies Die by Daniel Ziblatt and Stephen Levitsky, the authors describe four key indicators of authoritarian behavior and how a leader might present when acting in such a manner. The first indicator is a leader who rejects (or has a weak commitment to) the democratic rules of the game, trying to undermine the legitimacy of elections as well as refusing to accept credible electoral results. This was Trump’s first move after not being elected for a second consecutive term in office, when he then incited the January 6th riots during a speech to his supporters outside of the White House. President Trump ended his speech with this line, “We fight. We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore. So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.” Just as Levitsky and Ziblatt identified in their writing, Trump had actively rejected the rules set in place for democracy, urging his most loyal supporters to “fight like hell” against legitimate election results.

The authors also mention how an authoritarian leader may also “seek to use (or endorse the use of) extraconstitutional means such as violent insurrections aimed at forcing a change in government” (23). On the day of January 6th, 2021, Congress was holding a joint session to certify the results of the 2020 Presidential election; confirmed Joe Biden’s win. Trump’s motivation for inciting the violent insurrection was to forcibly prevent Congress from verifying the results of the election. Although this moment in history cannot be correctly identified as “extraconstitutional”, it does display President Trump’s willingness to manipulate and subvert legitimate election results for his own political purposes.

Fast forward to Donald Trump’s second term as President, and he has continued his trend of targeting the electoral system. Two months after President Trump’s inauguration in January of 2025, he issued his first executive order regarding elections: Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections. Since then, Trump has pursued additional changes, such as citizenship verification, mail-voting restrictions, and an untimely redistricting campaign across the country. These developments all contain elements of what Nancy Bermeo identifies as a strategic manipulation of elections in her article “On Democratic Backsliding”, in which incumbents intend to alter institutional rules regarding elections to maintain political power. Actions such as hampering voter registration and media access, changing electoral rules to favor incumbents, and harassing opponents have all taken place within the newest Trump administration and within the past couple of months. When reflecting upon this through Bermeo’s framework, these actions cultivate a broader intent to manipulate the electoral process to maintain a Republican majority within Congress.

After Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic primary in Michigan this past August, President Trump has increased his attacks on the party. El-Sayed was targeted with harsh rhetoric, as the President accused him of being a violent anti-semite, who hates Jewish people with a passion that burns in his heart. By centering on El-Sayed and making him the forefront of the Democratic Party, Trump is attempting to paint a larger picture of the party and skew voter perception to benefit the Republicans. It is a manipulative tactic to undermine Democratic candidates as the midterms arise.

As of September 2026, a US judge has blocked the DHS from its plan to withhold 20% of anti-terrorism grant funding from state and local governments over election changes. This plan involved requiring specific grant recipients to use equipment that accepts hand-marked paper ballots rather than electronic voting systems; another form of voting that President Trump has been attacking. Additionally, there would also be a requirement to “manually audit at least 5% of ballot casts, and compare their voter rolls to a DHS database to make sure no noncitizens were registered to vote” (Cohen). Although the judge was able to block this policy from passing, it demonstrates how avid President Trump has been in utilizing federal power to pressure compliance from states to alter the way they govern elections.

It’s important to keep a close eye on the Trump administration as midterm elections are now only a month away. If the highly favored Democrats manage to regain control of the Senate, it begs the question: how will President Trump respond? He has fought a long battle to undermine the electoral system, and it will only persist to greater levels in the event that Democrats are successful this midterm season.

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