Democratic attorneys general step up preparations to counter Trump's meddling in the midterms

Democratic state attorneys general, top officials overseeing elections and civic groups have accelerated planning to thwart any federal meddling in the November midterm elections by President Donald Trump, as he continues his false charges of widespread voting fraud and veiled threats of interfering in the process.

Since early this year, 24 Democratic attorneys general have expanded coordination with about a dozen Democratic secretaries of state and several civic groups, using weekly Zoom calls and in-person tabletop exercises to strategise about countering any federal intervention in the elections.

The enhanced cooperation is significant because secretaries of state are responsible for supervising elections and attorneys general are charged with defending the laws governing them. The efforts are being spearheaded by the Progressive State Leaders Committee (PSLC), the public policy arm of the Democratic Attorneys General Association.

The Democratic attorneys general say they are especially worried about interference in the elections by the Department of Justice and other parts of the Trump administration, given the president's repeated false charges of rampant voting fraud in US elections.

On Trump's first day in office last January, he falsely called the 2020 election 'rigged', and has made similar claims hundreds of times since he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

Nick Brown, the Washington state attorney general, said the Justice Department and the Trump administration were 'the biggest adversary to a smooth election'. He added: 'Trump lies about the election on a regular basis. Truth is not a goal of his. That creates a whole host of concerns for us.'

In one worrying move, the Justice Department announced dubious plans this summer to deploy 1,000 poll monitors, prompting the NAACP to file a lawsuit on 4 October seeking details of how the monitors will be deployed; by comparison, in 2022 the department deployed 289 monitors, according to CBS News.

In another move, the Justice Department has sued 30 states to obtain their unredacted voter lists containing sensitive personal information. Democratic attorneys general have been challenging those lawsuits, and the department has lost 26 of the lawsuits that courts have ruled on.

Furthermore, Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division, wrote this summer to state election officials threatening prosecutions if they did not cooperate adequately in hunting for voting fraud.

To counter these threats, Brown has led the weekly Zoom calls with PSLC partners including secretaries of state offices and groups such as the Democracy Defenders Fund, the States United Democracy Center and the Brennan Center for Justice. The calls cover scenarios including ICE agents showing up near polling places and ballots being seized in some races.

Brown, who chairs the PSLC election-protection working group, also led two in-person tabletop exercises in Milwaukee in May and Detroit in September. His office co-led the legal moves that blocked Trump's March executive order to overhaul and curb voting by mail, which the Supreme Court ruled against last month.

Oregon's attorney general Dan Rayfield shares the concerns, saying: 'From day one, Trump has been taking dead aim at our elections.' Arizona's secretary of state Adrian Fontes described the cooperation as an 'all-hands approach' to cope with the threats of federal interference.

Norm Eisen, executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund, praised the preparation, saying the level of preparation by the attorneys general and secretaries of state is 'off the charts'. Brennan Center expert Larry Norden warned that administration leaders have repeatedly threatened or attempted to exert control over the midterms, but for the last 18 months they have been met by pushback and consistently lost.

Two new groups were also created in 2026 to protect election results and bolster coordination — one raising funds to elect more Democrats to both state offices, and the other serving as a policy arm. As election day approaches, these preparations are only intensifying.