With the 2026 midterm elections less than a month away, President Donald Trump keeps teasing that his administration has a “surprise” in store, a message that led many to fear a new attempt to subvert what are projected to be heavy losses by Republicans.

In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, bragging about his rally crowd sizes, Trump cryptically urged readers to “Watch for the ‘Midterm Surprise’!”

Hours later, during a rally in Maryland, he shouted out Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Vought, a key architect of Project 2025, has been instrumental in Trump’s second-term restructuring of the federal government and in weaponizing federal funding to exert leverage over states.

“We have some big surprises coming up in another few weeks, right, Russ?” Trump said. "He’s going to be one of the very important people in the history of our country, in my opinion. He’s got some great things happening.”

In light of Trump’s suggestions that he could “nationalize” elections or outright “cancel” them, send immigration agents to polling places, seize voting machines, or use federal agencies to seek out “ineligible” voters, his unexplained intonations about a coming “surprise” immediately became the subject of rampant speculation.

“The time to prepare for him to try to steal an election is now,” wrote Fox News anchor Jessica Tarlov. Former US Attorney Joyce Vance wrote that it signaled “election interference is in the offing.” Conservative Trump critic Pedro Gonzalez warned that it could signal a “repeat of 2020,” when Trump attempted to overturn his loss to former President Joe Biden by pushing false claims of widespread voter fraud.

“Nothing this administration has done so far has come out of nowhere.”

Common Dreams spoke with several voting rights and election security experts about what sorts of “surprises” Trump may have in store and what powers he may actually attempt to wield. They made one thing abundantly clear: Whatever he tries to do—legal or otherwise—they’re ready.

“No one outside the administration knows what a ‘Midterm Surprise’ means, but nothing this administration has done so far has come out of nowhere,” said Cerin Lindgrensavage, who serves as counsel for Protect Democracy. “They have been signaling their plans for months.”

Lindgrensavage told Common Dreams that “one clue” was the administration’s use of federal payouts to voters—which some critics have characterized as “bribes”—including Trump’s promise to send each American adult a $5,000 check if Republicans emerge victorious. Last week, Trump announced that around 20 million Medicare recipients would receive $90 checks from a fund meant to improve the program.

“We’ve been paying attention to the accelerating pace at which federal money is being shipped out the door and heralded in big announcements, in ways that look more like popularity plays than what Congress intended the use of those funds for,” Lindgrensavage said.

Michael McNulty, the senior policy director at Issue One, agreed that while we “can’t know exactly” what Trump has in mind, “we can look at the pattern,” which his organization has described as the “election takeover playbook.”

“It starts with tired, recycled false election fraud narratives such as claims of foreign interference, noncitizen voting, mail-in voting problems—despite himself voting by mail in previous elections—or ‘corrupt’ election officials, even when the evidence contradicts them,” McNulty explained. “He then uses that to justify trying to take control of election processes, whether through an emergency declaration, demands for state voter data and election materials, or federal agents near polling places.”

“It ends,” he said, “with efforts to undermine certification if the results aren’t what the administration wants.”

OMB has no formal authority over elections. But McNulty stressed that Vought could still use his office’s powers to exert “indirect” influence over the states that run them.

“Withholding funds, imposing grant conditions, and coordination with other agencies,” he said, “could be used to pressure states and localities.”

Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the second Trump administration, speaks during a Senate Committee on the Budget hearing to examine the president’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal on Capitol Hill on April 16, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)

However, he said to “keep in mind those levers are limited by what Congress has authorized, and courts have repeatedly pushed back on funding conditions that go beyond the law.”

McNulty told Common Dreams he is unaware of any specific effort directly tying OMB to election administration, but said there was a risk of possible coordination among OMB and the departments of Homeland Security and Justice “on voter data, security funding, and Election Day activity.”

“We have strong protections in place, and we intend to use them."

Other experts suggested it was less useful to speculate on what Trump might do than to look at how he is already trying to exceed his legal authority.

Trump has repeatedly suggested that he should have had federal authorities seize voting machines in 2020. Democracy Docket reported on Tuesday that election denialist activists urged him to declare a “national emergency” to do just that while meeting with him in the White House recently.

Pamela Smith, the president and CEO of Verified Voting, said her organization was prepared in case Trump attempts to seize voting machines or other election materials.

“The states run elections, and the president has no authority to affect those processes, as courts have repeatedly shown," Smith told Common Dreams.

By preparing officials for what to do if chains of custody on ballots are broken, she said, “we are helping election offices prepare for any threats to ballots throughout the November 3 election and in the weeks that follow, so that every ballot can be tracked, secured, and accounted for.”

John Cusick, assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), told Common Dreams his group is preparing for threats ranging from federal interference in election administration to voter intimidation and mass voter challenges.

“We have strong protections in place, and we intend to use them,” Cusick said, pointing in particular to Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voter intimidation.

Demonstrators gather on the National Mall during a ‘Defend the Vote’ rally marking the 63rd anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington in Washington, DC, on August 28, 2026. (Photo by Mehmet Eser/Anadolu via Getty Images)

He noted that LDF has already sued over the prospect of federal law enforcement at polling places.

“Let me be plain," he said, "a polling place is not a checkpoint.”

Cusick said LDF is also working with national, state, and local partners to identify problems ahead of election day and train volunteers to observe and report suppression efforts.

“We will protect this election,” he said. “But it should not take such a herculean effort from the civil rights community to secure and protect voting rights. Congress must meet its constitutional responsibility to ensure every eligible voter can participate free from discrimination, no matter where they live.”

He called on Congress to strengthen voting rights protections, establish national election administration standards, and provide more funding directly to local election officials.

Celina Stewart, the CEO of the League of Women Voters, told Common Dreams she would not speculate on what surprise attacks Trump may have in store or attempt to “assign meaning where no evidence exists.”

“What we do know is that election administration in the United States is governed by law, distributed across states and local jurisdictions, and constrained by constitutional checks and balances,” she said. “No president has unilateral authority to control election administration, determine election outcomes, or override the lawful counting and certification of ballots.”

“Any attempt by any federal official to exceed constitutional or statutory authority would be subject to legal challenge and public scrutiny,” she said. “Our focus is not on political rhetoric but on ensuring that voters can cast ballots freely, that election officials can do their jobs without interference, and that the 2026 elections are administered according to law.”

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