6 other ways Trump is meddling in the midterms

Mail-in ballots are prepared at the Wake County Board of Elections in Raleigh, North Carolina on September 11, 2026. | Allison Joyce/Bloomberg via Getty Images This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day.

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The recent history of mail voting in the United States has more twists and turns than an Emmy-winning drama.

But for the cause of democracy , at least, yesterday’s ending is a happy one.

On Monday, the Supreme Court definitively blocked President Donald Trump’s many attempts to sabotage voting by mail — opining, in a three-sentence brief, that Trump can’t implement his new rules for the 2026 midterms.

Or for any election, probably .

Those last-minute rules, you may recall , would have required states to adopt new ballot envelopes and upload absentee voters’ names and envelope barcodes to a still-nonexistent online platform.

Many officials argued they couldn’t possibly adopt the new measures before midterm voting starts, which would essentially cancel mail-in voting in their jurisdictions.

The Supreme Court, of course, has been broadly sympathetic to Trump’s legal antics, even when they appear to clearly flout law or precedent.

But shutting down voting just before the midterms? That’s one bridge too far for them.

Go a little deeper Hobbling vote-by-mail was just one of Trump’s plots to meddle in the midterms, however — and several of the others are still underway.

Here’s where some of the president’s most significant election maneuvers stand today: View Link How worried should you be going into the midterms? That, my friend, is a question to answer in your own little heart.

But I’m taking my cues from Vox’s politics editor, Benjy Sarlin, who recently reminded listeners of our America, Actually podcast that there are many, many institutional and logistical barriers to many of Trump’s more concerning legal machinations.

“We’re taking it very seriously here…and nothing’s guaranteed,” he acknowledged.