President Donald Trump said Tuesday he will respect the outcome of next week's midterm elections only if they are honest, a conditional pledge delivered just as the Justice Department presses a lawsuit that could delay certification of a closely watched Senate race in Alaska. Speaking before departing for a campaign trip to Texas, Trump offered the caveat even as voting is already well underway nationwide.
Trump's Conditional Pledge
“I will if they're honest elections,” Trump told reporters, according to USA Today. As NBC4 WCMH-TV reported, the comments came at Joint Base Andrews before Trump's departure for Texas. The remark is the latest in a pattern CNN describes as repeated attacks on the integrity of the voting process, paired with efforts to expand federal control over how states run their own elections.
Trump also said he directed the Justice Department to pursue a lawsuit over Alaska's Senate race, per the same USA Today report. That lawsuit, filed in late October, asks the state to delay certification of the results until the government investigates whether votes for a candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan were actually intended for incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, according to NPR.
Blanche Defends the Alaska Lawsuit
Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the lawsuit during a contentious CNN interview, insisting it is not meant to give Trump a path to challenge results he dislikes. “We're not laying any groundwork for the president to do that,” Blanche said, per NPR's reporting. Blanche argued there could be a crime involved, warning that Alaskans risk confusion and the possibility that their votes won't be properly heard.
Republicans have worried that a second candidate sharing the senator's name could siphon votes away from the incumbent in a tight contest against Democrat Mary Peltola, the Star Tribune reports. Alaska's lieutenant governor had already opened a separate investigation back in June into the Daniel J. Sullivan candidacy, examining allegations that he filed in coordination with another campaign specifically to confuse voters who share the senator's name, according to the state's own notice from the Alaska Office of the Lieutenant Governor before deciding whether he could appear on the ballot.
Minnesota Democrats Push Back
Trump's attention has also turned to Minnesota, where Republican Michele Tafoya and Democrat Peggy Flanagan are competing to succeed Sen. Tina Smith, who chose not to seek reelection. Trump posted on Truth Social that he was watching closely for voter fraud in the race and urged supporters to back Tafoya, warning against ballot manipulation and claiming she could lose only through cheating. He said the federal government would monitor the election closely.
Smith responded on X, accusing Trump of laying groundwork to steal the election and declaring that Minnesota would not accept what she called thinly veiled threats. Minnesota Democrats broadly pushed back on the remarks, and the state's own election chief moved to tamp down the fraud narrative: Secretary of State Steve Simon said he was confident in the accuracy of Minnesota's elections and that the state had seen no widespread voter fraud, the Star Tribune reported. Recent polling shows Flanagan leading Tafoya by an average of 3.5 percentage points, according to The Hill, in what has been one of the cycle's more competitive Senate contests.
A Record-Spending, High-Turnout Cycle
The rhetoric is landing against the backdrop of a midterm cycle already breaking records. Ad tracking service AdImpact found $11.21 billion spent on midterm advertising so far, CNN reported, and more than 30 million votes had already been cast with a week to go before Election Day — several days ahead of the pace set in 2022.
The Justice Department also said it would deploy 1,000 election monitors to polling places across all 50 states for the midterm vote, the Star Tribune noted, while Trump separately announced his administration would pay $1 million to anyone whose voter-fraud report leads to an arrest or conviction, per USA Today's report.
What the Polling Shows
A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found Democrats retain significant midterm advantages heading into Election Day and are favored to retake the House, with just 38% of registered voters approving of Trump's job performance against 61% who disapprove. Democrats held a 10-point lead over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot among registered voters and an 8-point edge among likely voters, according to NPR's analysis.
Separate survey data underscores how differently the two parties view the voting process itself. Pew Research found 64% of Democratic voters are confident mail and absentee ballots will be counted as intended, compared with 42% of Republican voters, and that 34% of Democratic voters plan to vote by mail or absentee ballot versus 17% of Republicans. Only 52% of all respondents said they were confident U.S. election systems are free from hacking or other technological threats, according to Pew Research data cited by Forbes.
