Many major polls are now indicating that Democrats have a good chance of taking not just the House in the coming midterms but also the Senate. Those improved odds for Democrats are fueling fears the Trump administration will roll out a playbook it has already drawn up to make sure that even a Democratic victory in one or both chambers is thwarted.
First, a look at the Senate polls that have Republicans so nervous:
The RealClearPolitics polling averages show Democrats leading in most of this cycle’s competitive Senate races, including Alaska, Ohio, and Texas. Iowa is the one true toss-up: Republican Ashley Hinson holds a razor-thin edge over Democrat Josh Turek in the polling average there.
The independent Dan Osborn, challenging the Republicans in Nebraska with Democratic backing, is locked in a close race with Sen. Pete Ricketts, and Senate races in deep-red Kansas and South Dakota have tightened enough that recent polls put them within the margin of error.
With Democrats ahead in Alaska, Ohio, and even Texas—hardly friendly territory for Democrats in recent elections—it’s hard to imagine Republicans feel any sense of security about holding onto the Senate. If they lose those three states and Democrats hold onto all their competitive seats, Republicans cannot retain control of the chamber.
Republicans might hold onto some hope when they look back at 2024 polling, which had Kamala Harris ahead of Trump in several key states before Trump came out ahead on Election Day.
The GOP faces headwinds this time that it didn’t have to contend with in 2024, though, chief among them increased unity among Democrats. In most of the key Senate races, Republican support for Republican candidates is running behind Democratic support for Democratic candidates. Ohio is a telling example: An August Fox News poll found Sherrod Brown, the Democrat, backed by 97% of Ohio Democrats, while Jon Husted, his Republican opponent, was backed by 87% of Republicans—with Brown also winning two-thirds of independents.
The other big headwind facing the GOP is that support for its candidates among independents is shrinking, with majorities in several polls saying they back Democrats this cycle—a reversal from 2024, when Republicans often carried independent voters.
All of this—bad news for Republicans, good news for Democrats—has people fearing that the Trump administration will resort to dirty tricks in an attempt to steal the election if it doesn’t go its way.
One of the major figures issuing these warnings is Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during the first Trump administration. He was the anonymous whistleblower who, writing as “Anonymous,” exposed extraconstitutional measures inside the Trump White House.
Taylor outlined this week, in an interview with The Mirror, what he believes the Trump administration could try if it is losing the election.
One tactic, he said, would be positioning ICE agents at polling places to drive down turnout by instilling fear in voters.
Taylor also warned the administration “will do whatever they can” to get around the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this month blocking new Trump-ordered restrictions on mail-in ballots for the midterms.
A third tactic Taylor named is sending in the FBI to seize ballots in places where the administration doesn’t like the results—something federal agents have already done once this year, when they seized more than 650 boxes of 2020 election ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, as part of a Trump-aligned lawyer’s fraud probe.
It would not be the first time Taylor has sounded this alarm.
In an October 2025 interview with Tech Policy Press, Taylor said he expects Trump to seek an unconstitutional third term in 2028 by running a “Vance-Trump” ticket—JD Vance at the top, Trump as his running mate—with Vance then stepping aside to hand the presidency back to Trump, or simply governing from the vice president’s office with Trump calling the shots.
It’s a prospect he repeated in a television interview on MSNOW Thursday morning, saying the move could even be part of a Trump scheme to avoid legal troubles. Taylor suggested that Trump will try “holding onto power” as a way to “keep himself out of jail.”
Labor and its allies have acknowledged the danger of a Trump administration trying to prevent any kind of defeat. Their answer, they say, is to build a turnout so overwhelming that nothing can stop the results from standing.
Taylor’s warning, in the end, is blunt: “When Donald Trump loses, he lashes out,” he said—and Democrats and their allies say the only insurance against that is turning out enough voters that no dirty trick can change the outcome.
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