Donald Trump is once again signaling a sweeping federal role in how elections are run, pressing Republicans to push for national control of voting as the 2026 midterm races draw closer.
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In an interview that aired Monday, Trump argued that the GOP should move to centralize election administration in several states.
“The Republicans should say, we want to take over, we should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” Trump said during a podcast appearance with Dan Bongino.
The remarks followed a recent FBI search of an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, a jurisdiction that has remained central to Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden was rigged. The search was tied to a Justice Department effort to obtain election records and investigate alleged voter fraud.
“We have states that are so crooked, and they’re counting votes. We have states that I won, that show I didn’t win,” Trump said. “Now you’re going to see something in Georgia where they were able to get with a court order, the ballots, you’re going to see some interesting things come out.”
Tulsi Gabbard confirmed that Trump personally directed her to travel to Atlanta in connection with the search. According to sources familiar with the matter, Gabbard also put Trump on the phone with Federal Bureau of Investigation agents involved, with one source describing the call as a brief pep talk.
Elections in the United States are traditionally managed by state and local officials, with limited federal oversight. Even so, Trump has repeatedly sought to reshape election rules, including signing an executive order aimed at tightening voter registration requirements and restricting the counting of late-arriving mail ballots.
Democratic election officials are now preparing for possible federal involvement in upcoming contests. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said planning discussions have expanded to include how to protect voters and election workers if federal authorities appear at polling sites. “This is now a legitimate planning category. It’s extraordinarily sad, but it would be irresponsible for us to disregard the possibility,” Simon said.
As the midterms approach, Trump’s renewed calls for nationalized voting continue to raise alarms about the balance of power over US elections and the pressure facing state officials tasked with running them.
