Following a wave of primaries on June 2 in the state of California, it took a few days for the media to call the winners of races in the state, as it often does because California will count ballots if they arrive within seven days after Election Day, and large numbers of people voting by mail cast their votes on or shortly before Election Day.

The president and his allies have taken advantage of this vote count period to sow misinformation. He has claimed that ballots counted after Election Day are somehow illegitimate because of the outcome they produced (two Democrats are headed to the Los Angeles mayoral runoff, instead of Spencer Pratt, a Republican). Spencer Pratt had a small lead for a second place spot in the runoff among the very first ballots counted in the race, while later arriving ballots favored Nithya Raman, a Democratic candidate. “You look at what’s happening — it’s getting tighter and tighter and tighter,” Trump  said. “And the people who were supposed to win, bad things are happening. It’s a crooked state.” Now, a U.S. attorney has opened an investigation into the elections without any evidence of wrongdoing.

There’s nothing surprising about the outcome of this election — similar patterns have occurred in races since at least 2020. And there’s nothing surprising about Trump using his megaphone to spew election disinformation. In fact, it’s part of the administration’s overarching plan for the 2026 midterms: to deceive the public about the legitimacy of the elections, thereby creating a pretext to disrupt election processes (for instance, by imposing unlawful new rules on mail voting) and eventually to deny the results. That strategy might not be effective, but these California elections make it clear that Trump is going to try it regardless.

Two developments this week reveal how broadly the administration is targeting civil society as the midterms approach.

On June 11, more than 100 FBI and DHS agents raided the offices and homes of staff of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a nonprofit that runs some of Ohio’s largest voter registration drives. Agents fanned out across the state questioning people connected to the group, including some who had performed basic canvassing and volunteer work, and pressed them for information — sometimes without warrants. The stated basis was voter fraud, but no evidence has been made public. The raid arrives as polls show competitive races for U.S. Senate and governor in Ohio, with Democrats hoping for their first statewide win since 2018.

On June 16, federal prosecutors announced charges against 15 people accused of impeding federal agents during Operation Metro Surge, the administration’s mass immigration enforcement action in Minneapolis earlier this year. The charges include conspiracy to impede federal officers, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, and assault — but when prosecutors were repeatedly asked how many agents had been injured, they offered no examples. 

Taken together, these actions target two distinct forms of civic participation — voter registration and protest — using the machinery of federal law enforcement. The message to organizers, canvassers, and demonstrators is the same: dissent carries legal risk.

On Fox News Sunday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed without evidence that “there’s a ton of evidence that the 2020 election was rigged” and that the Department of Justice has “multiple investigations going on in Arizona, in Georgia, in Fulton County, Georgia” focused on determining whether “the right people voted.” Blanche offered no specific evidence to support the claim, acknowledged that the investigation has taken more than five years because supposed election-riggers are “very good at hiding what they’re doing,” and declined to provide any timeline for results.

No court, audit, or law enforcement investigation — including those conducted by officials appointed by and loyal to the Trump administration — has produced credible evidence that the 2020 election was stolen or rigged. What makes Blanche’s statement distinct from prior disinformation is its source: it is the sitting head of the Department of Justice, using the authority of that office to validate claims the legal system has repeatedly rejected.

As Protect Democracy’s Executive Override report documents, the administration has made election denialism official federal policy — using investigative and enforcement powers to manufacture the appearance of fraud and flood the public with disinformation designed to erode confidence in the 2026 midterms. Blanche’s Fox News appearance fits squarely within that strategy. The report warns that conspiracy theories and bogus investigations serve not only to deceive voters now, but to lay the groundwork for the administration’s final gambit: contesting or overturning 2026 election results that the administration doesn’t like. Lending the DOJ’s institutional credibility to election disinformation accelerates both goals simultaneously.

The United States and Iran reached a deal on June 14 to end more than three months of war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with a signing ceremony set for Friday in Switzerland. The conclusion of the conflict is welcome news. But the way it was fought and ended reflects a significant, largely uncontested expansion of executive power.

Trump launched the war in February without congressional authorization, and Congress spent months trying and failing to rein him in. The House passed a war powers resolution on June 3 in a rare bipartisan rebuke, but the Senate never followed suit — and the administration’s position throughout was that the War Powers Act simply did not apply. Secretary of State Rubio said the administration was complying with elements of the law only to maintain good relations with Congress, not because it was legally obligated to.

The Iran war has now established a precedent: A president can wage and conclude an unauthorized multi-month war, negotiate a unilateral peace, and leave Congress without a meaningful role at any stage.

The nomination of Jay Clayton as the Director of National Intelligence proves that loyalty is crucial for this president.

The DNI has access to a host of highly sensitive national security information, which affords major opportunities to spread disinformation about candidates, their supporters, and the electoral system itself. This could look like a selective leak designed to tarnish a political opponent or false claims about foreign interference in the election process itself.

Clayton’s career is conventionally distinguished — he was a longtime partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and served as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term. He was confirmed last year as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. But he has been willing to embrace (or at least not resist) Trump’s agenda of weaponized law enforcement. He reportedly advised SDNY prosecutor Danielle Sassoon (then the acting head of SDNY) to follow DOJ’s order to drop the criminal case against then-NYC mayor Eric Adams. He didn’t intervene when DOJ fired respected SDNY prosecutor Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey.

The installation of a loyalist in this position information coming out of the Office of the DNI could be suspect, and that’s especially the case around reports of election interference. In fact, Clayton has signaled concerns about election interference in response to the California election results.

The April 25 shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner and the subsequent exchange of fire between a gunman and the Secret Service outside the White House have sharpened concerns about political violence in the run-up to the 2026 midterms. Rather than treating the attack as a shared civic danger, the White House moved within days to assign blame to Democrats and the media, claiming their rhetoric had “helped to legitimize this violence.” That framing omits a documented pattern running in the other direction: an NBC News review found that Trump’s public attacks on perceived political enemies generated threats against at least 22 officials on both sides of the aisle.

Research consistently finds that election periods are correlated with heightened risk of political violence, and data shows that threats and harassment against local officials surge during election years — most frequently targeting election officials and poll workers, with an additional uptick in threats against judges over election-related issues. Swatting incidents, online death threats, and increased protection measures for officials connected to politically charged cases have all intensified since the Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, raising concerns inside federal law enforcement about the trajectory of the threat environment as the midterms approach.

It’s important to remember, too, that there are things we can do to lower the temperature:

• We can condemn political violence, regardless of whether it’s directed at figures we support or vehemently disagree with.
• We can intentionally avoid spreading false narratives, fueling conflict, or providing platforms to extremists.
• We can use legal tools to hold those accountable who spread dangerous misinformation, put others at risk, or threaten those engaged in the political process.

We can all collectively choose to obtain our information from trusted, official sources, avoiding the contentious and inaccurate information that often circulates online.

It’s important to remember, too, that there are things we can do to lower the temperature:

• We can condemn political violence, regardless of whether it’s directed at figures we support or vehemently disagree with.
• We can intentionally avoid spreading false narratives, fueling conflict, or providing platforms to extremists.
• We can use legal tools to hold those accountable who spread dangerous misinformation, put others at risk, or threaten those engaged in the political process.

We can all collectively choose to obtain our information from trusted, official sources, avoiding the contentious and inaccurate information that often circulates online.

Deployments of ICE agents to cities across the country began in earnest in the summer of 2025, and a year later, they are set to ramp up again. White House border czar Tom Homan has said that one of those surges will target New York City, explaining that the surge would happen because Governor Kathy Hochul is no longer allowing state and local law enforcement to double as immigration officials across the state.

While Homan acknowledged that he “had to” surge ICE into the city, he also made it clear that he doesn’t want to repeat what happened in Minnesota. “You will not see a Minnesota. I will not let Minnesota happen,” he said.

This comes as tensions have continued to escalate around the Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center in New Jersey. The facility has been the site of protests over the conditions inside, and those protests have sometimes led to armored officers using tear gas and batons to beat back the protesters. More than 80 people have been arrested.