Updated Report Details How the Trump Administration's Plan to Interfere in Midterms Has Accelerated
Protect Democracy's "Deceive, Disrupt, Deny in Full Effect" documents four months of evidence behind the strategy — and the officials, courts, and Americans pushing back.
Washington, D.C., July 16, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Protect Democracy released Deceive, Disrupt, Deny in Full Effect, an update to its March report Executive Override, which predicted how the administration would turn federal power against the 2026 midterms. The update tracks four months of developments against those predictions and lays out what to watch heading into the fall, including weaponized intelligence releases and distrust of voting systems.
"None of this should come as a surprise because the playbook has been used by unpopular authoritarians around the world who are desperately clinging to power,” said Ben Berwick, Special Counsel, Director of Impact Programs, Election Law & Litigation at Protect Democracy. "President Trump has been speed-running their tactics since early last year. The fact that it's now playing out exactly as predicted doesn't make it less dangerous; but it does mean that we can understand what's coming next and prepare for it."
The update finds that the strategy has accelerated since March, with the machinery of doubt now visible across multiple agencies. The report retraces the actions of the administration while also laying out the expected actions between now and November. That includes examples like:
- A proposed Postal Service rule would make the agency gatekeeper of mail voting — a role two federal courts have already blocked it from taking on.
- The FBI raided the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, the state's leading voter-registration group — the kind of action the March report predicted in writing.
- Bill Pulte, installed as acting Director of National Intelligence despite a record of partisan retribution, has already begun purging experienced staff from his office.
- The administration is 0-15 in federal court on its attempts to obtain state voter-roll data.
- Bipartisan majorities in Congress have, for now, blocked the SAVE Act, a proposed $1.8 billion slush fund for January 6 defendants, and Pulte's formal DNI nomination.
The report notes that this strategy does not depend on winning in court; doubt itself is the goal, and court losses are being recast to further the administration's aim of contesting results it doesn't like. A new chapter also examines how recent Supreme Court decisions have accelerated, rather than checked, the strategy.
"This administration isn't done trying to tilt the playing field in their favor," said Protect Democracy’s Director of Impact Programs & Counsel Jessica Marsden. “We expect the pressure on courts, election officials, and civil society to keep building through November. But the response we're already seeing — from federal workers, from faith and labor groups, from students who sued and won — tells us people aren't waiting for a crisis to act. They're organizing now."
The update also documents where the strategy is meeting resistance. After New Hampshire passed a law stripping sworn affidavits for student voter registration, the New Hampshire Youth Movement sued — and in May 2026, a federal court struck the law down, protecting tens of thousands of young voters from the added hurdles. In Minnesota, after DOJ indicted 15 anti-ICE protesters, roughly 50 labor and faith groups jointly condemned the prosecutions as an attempt at political intimidation. Inside the federal government, a growing coalition of federal workers is organizing across agencies to refuse compliance with orders they consider illegal. The report makes clear that the playbook depends on people going along with it — and that officials, courts, and communities are, so far, holding the line.
The report closes with concrete steps for the fall: verify voter registration and help others do the same; volunteer as a poll worker or ballot-curing volunteer; serve as a poll observer to help make results verifiable; and prepare to support the certification process in your community. Protect Democracy is tracking these priorities on an ongoing basis at protectdemocracy.org.
“Protecting this election doesn't require a perfect plan — it requires people showing up where they are and digging in for their communities,” said Protect Democracy Co-Founder Justin Florence. "Check your registration. Sign up to be a poll worker. Learn who certifies results in your community and let them know you're watching. Every one of those actions makes the administration's strategy harder to pull off."
Deceive, Disrupt, Deny in Full Effect is available here.
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Protect Democracy is a nonpartisan, nonprofit group working to prevent American democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government. Protect Democracy United is a registered 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. Protect Democracy Project is a registered 501(c)(3) charitable organization. For more information visit: ProtectDemocracy.org
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