Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on Oct. 30 that President Donald Trump “wants to steal the midterms” and that Senate Democrats have prepared for months to stop him. His post linked to a column he wrote on the subject.
Schumer posted the statement at 3:12 p.m. on Oct. 30. It ended with a link to his own byline column, introduced as “Read my article here:”. His full post reads:
“Donald Trump wants to steal the midterms. Senate Democrats have been preparing for months to stop him.
Elections belong to the American people, not Trump. We will fight him every step of the way, and we will ensure free and fair elections.
Read my article here:”
The Column
The attached piece, dated Oct. 30 and headlined “Trump is doing everything he can to subvert the midterms. But democracy will prevail,” is an opinion column by Schumer. It says Trump, “staring defeat in the face,” will try to cancel votes because he cannot win Americans’ support.
The column says that in July, Trump claimed his administration had found hundreds of thousands of noncitizens registered to vote in four states, offering no proof. Schumer writes that in Nevada, the list of supposedly illegal voters went from nearly 16,000 to zero. These are Schumer’s claims in his column.
The SAVE America Act
The column says Trump’s failed push to pass the SAVE America Act would have let DHS purge voters in all 50 states. It quotes Trump as saying that if the bill passes, “we won’t lose an election for a hundred years.” Schumer says Senate Democrats blocked it.
The bill would require documentary proof of citizenship to register and a photo ID to vote. On March 15, Schumer called it “a voter suppression bill” and vowed that Trump would not “ram this bill through the Senate.” He warned that it would require states to give DHS their voter registration rolls and could affect married women whose names differ from their birth certificates.
The bill needs 60 votes to clear a filibuster, and Republicans hold 53 seats. An April effort to advance it failed 48-50. Majority Leader John Thune has said the bill is made up of policies that “should get an automatic ‘yes’ vote.” Thune later said that Democrats are blocking commonsense policies that have broad support.
Schumer also said in May that Senate Democrats were launching an election protection task force of 11 senators and election experts, prepared to mount “lawsuit after lawsuit.” In remarks that month he said: “Local officials run elections. Voters decide elections. Donald Trump does not.”
Other Claims in the Column
The column describes “two illegal voter suppression executive orders,” a campaign against mail-in voting, and threats against election administrators in California and Washington. It says the Justice Department issued over 100 subpoenas for election records to 13 states in the past week, and filed a lawsuit to block Alaska from certifying the election.
Reporting from May confirms parts of the broader pattern. A Trump executive order seeking proof of citizenship for federal elections was blocked in court. The Justice Department sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for voter data, and federal judges have so far ruled against the department.
Schumer writes that he expects Trump to threaten election officials with prosecution, send federal agents near polling places, and interfere with counting and certification, including by seizing machines and ballots. Federal law prohibits federal troops and agents at election sites in nearly all circumstances. Trump has declined to rule out deploying them, saying he would “do anything necessary” to ensure honest elections.
The column also says Trump’s approval rating hovers in the low 30s, and it points to early voting data showing millions of voters heading to the polls. It says reports of Republican organizers using homes as a base for out-of-town voters and a former Georgia GOP official who voted illegally nine times went unaddressed by Trump. The midterm elections are on Nov. 3.