Even as he cast ballots by mail himself and launched messaging campaigns encouraging his supporters to do the same, Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to eliminate mail-in voting altogether, baselessly casting doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in votes.
Now he appears to be calling for the end of all forms of early voting.
After publicly demanding the prosecution of his political enemies, Trump encouraged the Department of Justice to investigate the outcome of the 2020 presidential election with “gusto” — and signaled that the “biggest SCANDAL in American history” will “happen again” unless the government eliminates early voting.
“Look what happened to our Country when a Crooked Moron became our ‘President!’” he wrote on Truth Social. “We now know everything. I hope the DOJ pursues this with as much ‘gusto’ as befitting the biggest SCANDAL in American history! If not, it will happen again, including the upcoming Midterms. No mail-in or ‘Early’ Voting, Yes to Voter ID!”
The president’s post, which veered from the NBA gambling scandal to California’s redistricting push, glimpsed how his administration is framing midterm elections in 2026 with the balance of power in Congress — and the future of his administration — at stake: Votes for Democratic candidates and the measures they support that are not cast on Election Day are illegitimate.
“Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being ‘shipped,’” Trump said. “GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!”
When asked to clarify the president’s remarks and whether he intends to somehow ban early voting, the White House directed The Independent to what he said in his post.
For more than a decade, Trump has lied about “rigged” election results and questioned how elections are run by raising unproven allegations of widespread voter fraud. His false, ongoing narrative that the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen” from him not only fed conspiracy theories that fueled the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 but are the foundation of legislative and legal threats to the legitimacy of any election outcomes.
Trump demanded “same day voting” on “paper ballots” even as his campaign promoted early voting in 2024. In August, he threatened to sign an executive order to “get rid” of mail-in ballots.
Even as he demands all elections be held over the course of one day and in person, Trump has bragged about setting early voting “records” and urged Republicans to vote early at virtual rallies for GOP candidates.
He is now seeking to link mail-in ballots and early votes as proof — without evidence — that Democrats are “cheating on Elections.”
Nearly 70 percent of votes cast for president in 2020 were sent by mail or during the in-person early voting periods. In 2024, as expanded access to mail-in ballots eased after the COVID-19 pandemic, that figure was 60 percent — still a majority of all votes cast.
Under Trump’s terms, those ballots from millions of voters are “dishonest.”
“Donald Trump is never moving on from the 2020 election. And now, he’s planning to get revenge in 2026,” according to elections attorney Marc Elias, founder of Democracy Docket.
Nearly every state holds an early, in-person voting period, and several states hold virtually all mail elections.
Trump’s post appeared to tell California voters not to cast their votes by mail or early — the exact opposite message Republican officials in the state are giving to their supporters.
By law, California mails ballots to every registered voter in the state, which Trump appears to call “shipped” ballots that steal elections.
“Ramblings of an old man that knows he’s going to LOSE,” Governor Gavin Newsom wrote on X.
More than 4 million mail-in ballots — more than 18 percent of the ballots sent to the state’s 23 million voters — had already been returned as of last week.
Ballots from registered Democratic voters outpaced ballots from Republicans 51 percent to 28 percent, a turnout that appears to be frustrating GOP officials.
“It’s simple. Republicans need to stop complaining and vote. We ask and ask and ask and yet turnout still lags,” the San Diego GOP wrote on X. “To win this one GOP turnout needs to be materially better than average. It’s very doable but won’t just happen. Work it.”
Trump’s threats also follow a record-setting first weekend of early voting in New York City, where the race for mayor has already pulled in more than 164,000 voters to the polls.
That figure is five times higher than the first weekend of early voting four years ago, when voters elected Eric Adams, and nearly three times higher than the first weekend of early voting in June’s primary.
Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani — who Trump has threatened to arrest and deport if elected — is the frontrunner, competing against disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. Trump has baselessly branded Mamdani a “communist” and suggested he would pull federal funding from the city if he wins.
In his address to a crowd of supporters at a massive rally in Queens Sunday, Mamdani, who has faced an avalanche of racist and Islamophobic attacks, noted that Trump won the presidency days after he announced his mayoral campaign, with The Bronx and Queens showing some of the most significant rightward shifts compared to other parts of the country.
“We were told that if we had any hope of beating the Republican Party, it would only be by becoming the Republican Party,” he told supporters. “And the choice that we made was to stop listening to those experts and to start listening to you.”
