U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, November 5, 2026.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Monday questioned the legitimacy of the midterm election results, resurrecting his pattern of raising doubts about election losses for himself and other Republicans.
Trump’s social media post raising questions about the election came six days after his fellow Republicans suffered historic election defeats nationwide, including in several GOP strongholds like Texas and South Carolina.
“Does anyone really believe this ‘election’ was honest,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“How could the polls be so wrong??? Some early voting ‘dumps’ were so big that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people turned out to vote,” the president said. “It’s all about the machines, which are much more important than the voter!”
Trump’s message marks a stark departure from the conciliatory tone that followed Republican candidates’ landslide victory last Tuesday, which allowed Democrats to regain majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives.
On election night, Trump told the New York Times that he was “absolutely willing” to accept the results of the midterm elections and was willing to work with Democrats.
“We will, you know, look forward to working with them,” Trump told the Times. “We’ll probably find a solution.”
The next day, Trump said, “I’ll probably get along with the Democrats unless they want to be destructive.” »
Later in the week, he announced he was replacing White House chief of staff Susie Wiles with his deputy, Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, which has drawn widespread criticism from Democrats.
After his election loss to former President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump claimed, without evidence, that he lost solely because of widespread voter fraud.
Trump’s claims, along with dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits challenging election procedures, culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters after he spoke at a rally outside the White House.
The riot disrupted a joint session of Congress for hours. Later that day, Congress confirmed Biden’s election by the Electoral College.
Critics of Trump’s conspiracy theories about the election have noted that he lost the 2020 race when he was president, but won the 2024 presidential election, when Biden was in the White House.
They also noted that over the past week, Republicans controlled states that saw major Democratic victories that few analysts would have predicted a year ago, including Texas, Kansas, South Carolina and Iowa.
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