How Senate Democrats are planning to push back on potential election interference

Senate Democrats are war-gaming legal maneuvers and messaging strategies to thwart potential efforts by President Donald Trump or foreign actors to influence the results of the midterms.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and nine other Democratic senators huddled with top party election experts last week to drill responses to a range of extreme scenarios — from federal agents at polling locations, to ballot seizures in key battlegrounds, to foreign interference operations — that they fear could become reality pre- and post-Election Day.

They game-planned legal injunctions to bar armed federal agents or armed citizens from voting sites, and lawsuits to force the Trump administration to return ballots if they’re confiscated in key contests that could decide control of Congress. They also choreographed communication strategies across elected leaders, campaigns and advocacy groups to combat misinformation and disinformation designed to sow distrust in the results, according to details of the tabletop exercises shared exclusively with POLITICO.

“Trump has talked about stealing the election, violating the election, perverting the election, over and over again. And woe be us, and woe be anyone who believes in free elections, who doesn’t take that seriously,” Schumer said in a phone interview earlier this week. “We are going to be prepared for anything that he throws at us.”


https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/11/how-senate-democrats-are-planning-to-push-back-on-potential-election-interference-00957663