California Gov. Gavin Newsom told a crowd of Democratic canvassers in Lake Orion, Michigan, Sunday that President Trump is actively working to undermine the integrity of the midterm elections. “The lame duck president needs to get it right, so he’s doing everything to rig it, and he’s just winding up,” Newsom said, according to C-SPAN’s coverage of the event. He closed his remarks by invoking the country’s founding principles against what he called “the rule of Don,” saying Americans were “celebrating the 250th anniversary of the best of the Roman Republic, the best of Greek democracy, co-equal branches of government, popular sovereignty, the rule of law.”
The Specific Claim About Fulton County
Newsom’s core example of alleged election interference was a real, documented event. “You see what he’s tried to do in Fulton County. Not tried to do, he took the ballots in Fulton County,” Newsom told the crowd, adding that Trump had also “tried to take the voting rolls.” He was referring to a January 28 FBI search of the Fulton County, Georgia, elections center, in which agents seized more than 650 boxes of physical 2020 ballots, tabulator tapes, ballot images, and voter rolls.
Who Actually Triggered the Seizure
The investigation did not originate with career law enforcement acting independently. According to the unsealed affidavit, the FBI’s criminal investigation “originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity” — a lawyer who had previously worked on legal efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss and who a federal judge in Arizona had separately sanctioned for making “false” statements to the court in an earlier election lawsuit.
How Fulton County Officials Responded
Local officials characterized the seizure as an extraordinary breach of normal process. Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts said the unsealed affidavit confirmed the Trump administration was not following “normal procedures,” accusing federal officials of “disregarding the Constitution altogether,” according to Georgia Recorder’s reporting. Fulton County separately filed a lawsuit seeking the return of the roughly 700 boxes of seized election records and an unsealed copy of the affidavit used to justify the raid.
Why Georgia Democrats Called the Underlying Claims Debunked
The affidavit’s factual basis drew direct pushback from state party officials. Democratic Party of Georgia chair Charlie Bailey described the affidavit, according to the Washington Examiner’s reporting, as a “politicization of federal law enforcement by an increasingly manic president,” adding that the claims sought to “disprove some election results that have been, what, three different counts we had? Including a hand count of our ballots.” CNN’s own review of the affidavit similarly noted that some of the alleged “deficiencies or defects” the FBI cited “appear to be the result of administrative error that has already been scrutinized and found to have not affected the results of the presidential race.”
The Michigan Political Backdrop
Newsom’s remarks came during a canvass launch for two Michigan Democratic state House candidates, Alex Hawkins and Sarah Pounds, at a United Auto Workers local in Oakland County. According to the Detroit News, Newsom told the crowd of more than 150 attendees that Michigan elections carry “profound and outsized importance” for national Democrats, and separately praised Jocelyn Benson — Michigan’s secretary of state and the party’s gubernatorial nominee — as someone he had worked with since 2013.
Republican Pushback on the Visit
Michigan Republicans framed Newsom’s trip as an attempt to distract from a difficult Senate race. Gus Portela, spokesman for the Michigan House Republican Campaign Committee, said in a statement reported by the Detroit News that Democrats were “bringing in governors from high-tax, unaffordable states to sell policies that would tear Michigan family budgets apart,” referring to Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, whom Newsom also planned to meet during the same trip.
The National Guard Deployment Newsom Has Tied to the Same Pattern
Newsom’s “rule of Don” framing extends a line of argument he has pressed since June 2025, when Trump federalized roughly 4,000 California National Guard troops and deployed about 700 Marines to Los Angeles during immigration enforcement protests over Newsom’s objections. According to an official statement from the California governor’s office, a federal court ruled in September 2025 that Trump’s use of the military as a domestic police force was illegal, with Newsom saying at the time: “No president is a king — not even Trump — and no president can trample a state’s power to protect its people.” A federal judge had separately found in August 2025 that the deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a ruling California secured but which remained on hold pending the administration’s appeal.
How the Legal Fight Has Continued Since
The National Guard dispute has not been fully resolved even a year later. According to a December 2025 statement from Newsom’s office, the governor warned that California being the first state targeted this way “would not be the last — a prediction borne out by the President’s subsequent unlawful federalization of National Guard troops elsewhere, including in Oregon and Illinois.” The federal government had by that point renewed the California deployment’s federalization through at least February 2026.
Newsom’s Own Legal Exposure
Newsom’s aggressive posture toward the administration comes as he faces his own federal scrutiny. He announced in June that he and his wife were under federal investigation, though the specific basis was not detailed publicly; individuals familiar with the matter told the Washington Post that investigators were examining multiple lines of inquiry, including potential tax issues connected to a nonprofit linked to his wife. “Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean tweets,” Newsom said at the time. “He’s coming after me because I’m considering running for president.”
Why Michigan Specifically Matters to Newsom’s Own Ambitions
Political observers noted Newsom’s visit carried significance beyond the immediate midterm races. David Dulio, a political science professor at Oakland University, told the Detroit News that Michigan’s importance in presidential contests means the state “has to be at or near the top of his list of priorities for collecting political chits that he can then cash in when he needs help.” Political consultant John Sellek separately suggested the timing was “likely motivated by a desire to keep his presidential hopes alive by appearing in an early primary state while helping up and down the ticket.”
Where This Leaves Things
As of Sunday’s remarks, both the Fulton County ballot dispute and the National Guard deployment case remained in active litigation, with no final resolution on the underlying legal questions Newsom cited as evidence of a broader pattern. His characterization of these episodes as connected examples of election interference and military overreach reflects his own consistent framing since mid-2025, even as the legal proceedings themselves — an ongoing FBI criminal investigation in Georgia and an appealed federal court ruling in California — remain unresolved on their own separate tracks.