Trump Floated Canceling the Midterm Election (But Maybe Do)

He invaded Venezuela, suggested suspending democracy, and pre-blamed the press for calling him a dictator. November brings impeachment if he loses.

The United States held elections during the Civil War, the Great Depression, and two World Wars. Never canceled them. Not once. On January 6, 2026, the President floated the idea in front of House Republicans at a building he’d just renamed after himself.

I won’t say cancel the election, they should cancel the election, because the fake news would say, ‘He wants the elections canceled. He’s a dictator.’

This is what passes for strategy now. Say the thing while claiming not to say it. It’s a debate club trick from a guy polling at 40% who knows November is coming for him.

The GOP holds 218 seats in the House. That’s it. Three defections and nothing passes. Representative Doug LaMalfa died the same day Trump gave this speech, dropping dead at 65 during surgery. With Doug, I never had to call, Trump said, because LaMalfa voted with him every single time. Now his seat goes to special election.

Trump knows the math. If we don’t win the midterms, they’ll find a reason to impeach me.

He said it out loud. The reason already exists and it’s sitting in a cell in New York.

Three days before the cancel the election speech, Trump ordered strikes on Venezuela. No congressional approval. No declaration of war. Just airstrikes on Caracas and a raid that grabbed President Maduro. The administration calls it tactically brilliant. Constitutional lawyers call it impeachable.

But Trump went further. He announced the United States would run the country of Venezuela. Not stabilize it. Not hand it back. Run it. As in nation-building. As in indefinite occupation.

Trump Invaded Venezuela Without Congress: Iraq, But Faster

Energy experts say restoring Venezuela’s oil production would cost $100 billion and take ten years. There’s no funding. No authorization. Just an open-ended war in an election year.

Which brings us to August 2025. Trump met with Ukrainian President Zelensky and got weirdly interested in Ukraine’s martial law suspending elections during wartime. So you mean, if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections? Oh, that’s good.

Reporters said people laughed. Looking at it now, it’s not funny at all.

He starts a war months before midterms he’ll lose. He openly discusses wartime election suspension. He admits losing the House means impeachment. The dots connect themselves.

Of course he can’t legally cancel elections. The Constitution is clear. State legislatures and Congress set election dates. The Executive Branch doesn’t appear in that clause. The date is federal statute. Only Congress changes it.

Lincoln held elections during the Civil War even though he might lose. We cannot have free government without elections, he said.

Trump doesn’t have Lincoln’s patience. What he does have is a track record of grinding down norms through bureaucratic warfare. The speech happened at the Kennedy Center, which Congress designated as JFK’s memorial in 1964. Trump packed the Board of Trustees, they rewrote bylaws to exclude Democrats from voting, and renamed it the Trump-Kennedy Center anyway. When Rep. Joyce Beatty tried to object in the meeting, they muted her microphone.

Stack loyalists in the right positions, manipulate the procedures, claim it was all legitimate because people voted. Now imagine that applied to election certification.

Seven million Americans saw this coming. The No Kings protests started in October and haven’t stopped. Labor unions, teachers, nurses, veterans. The administration calls them Hate America rallies and the FBI is compiling lists of participants for potential domestic terrorism charges.

A general strike is planned for January 20th. Mass protests. Unauthorized war. Election threats. These combinations have a history and it’s not encouraging.

The absurd part is Trump’s fear makes sense. Midterm curse is real. His approval is terrible. The House flips, Democrats get subpoena power, impeachment follows. What doesn’t make sense is thinking this can be stopped with tough talk and military stunts.

The votes will be cast. The count will happen. The machine grinds forward because there’s no other mechanism.

Unless there is. The Kennedy Center proved guardrails come off when the right people are in the room. The question isn’t whether institutions will hold. The question is who’s in the room when the counting starts, and whether they’re still pretending to follow the rules.

Trump already showed how he thinks about elections during wartime. He already admitted he sees November as an existential threat. He already launched a war without asking permission.

The rest writes itself.

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References:

Trump Floats Cancelling 2026 Elections, Then Insists He Won’t