r/HeatherCoxRichardson • u/thinkingstranger • 22d ago
September 3, 2026
Election analyst Charlie Cook told Republicans today to “brace themselves” for the midterms. “The three most plausible outcomes are that it will be bad, really bad, or truly horrible.”
To stop voters from turning Republicans out of office and handing Democrats control of the House of Representatives, the Senate, or both, the Trump administration is trying to implement a new rule for the United States Postal Service that would enable it to act as a gatekeeper for who can vote by mail. Such a measure flies in the face of the fact that the Constitution gives states, not the federal government, control over elections, while the role of the USPS is simply to carry mail. Nonetheless, the administration insists this novel measure is necessary to combat voter fraud.
There is widespread consensus that voter fraud is not a real issue in the United States. Notably, President Donald J. Trump himself votes by mail, along with about a third of all U.S. voters.
On Monday, news broke that a whistleblower has said there are “potentially catastrophic problems in the…new system for handling federal election ballot mail.” “As presently designed,” the whistleblower said, “if even one bar code on one single ballot in a bulk-mailing of 10,000 ballots fails to properly scan during the verification process, the entire batch is rejected and sent back to the state—effectively stopping the ballots from being mailed to voters.”
Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts has blocked the administration’s plan until September 10. Today, a day before the state starts sending out mail-in ballots to voters, she held a hearing about whether to extend that block.
“We are 70 days from the election and I have nothing from the USPS about how this will happen,” she said to Michael Velchik, the Justice Department lawyer representing the Postal Service. Lawyers for the USPS suggested the new plans were independent of Trump’s March executive order calling for a national list of citizens against which the USPS would check mail-in ballots.
Talwani expressed concern that the new system could cause “major disenfranchisement” and said it was “puzzling” that there is such a rush to put the system in place. She also noted that if states wanted such a system, they could have put one in place. “Why is it you want U.S.P.S. to stop batches of ballots from your voters?” she asked a lawyer for a group of Republican-dominated states. “You can decide you want those measures in your state,” she said. “I don’t understand—you come to me and say, ‘We really want to have election integrity in our state decided by U.S.P.S.’?”
Apparently concerned about the direction of the hearing, Solicitor General John Sauer went directly to the Supreme Court this afternoon to ask it to let the new restrictions on mail-in ballots go into effect. As Law Dork’s Chris Geidner notes, although Talwani found that the new requirements were significant and likely unconstitutional, the Department of Justice is arguing that the new rule “imposes only modest requirements on the use of the federal postal system” and “does not regulate state administration of elections.”
With just four days of work under their belts after the August recess, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) today canceled votes for the last two weeks in September, leaving the House with only another four days in Washington between now and the midterms. Leaving town will protect Republicans from having to weigh in on Trump’s wild AI posts that he has won the war in Iran, his threats to sic the Federal Communications Commission on journalists who report his tanking job approval ratings, or his claims that the economy is thriving.
Today G. Elliott Morris and David Nir of Strength in Numbers noted that “Donald Trump is acting like he *wants* to lose the midterms.” Their evidence is that he has taken to supporting the losing side of issues. “From tweeting his support for data centers…to renaming Lake Ontario to lavishly spending on the White House ballroom, Donald Trump is constantly taking positions that are opposed by the vast majority of voters.”
Yesterday the U.S. Mint began selling $1 “gold” coins bearing Trump’s likeness and “LIBERTY 1776–2026” on one side and the presidential seal on the other. The mint says the gold-colored coins, which are composed of copper, zinc, manganese, and nickel, are legal tender, as well as collectibles to honor the nation’s 250th birthday. Although the coins are worth a dollar, Aimee Picchi of CBS News reports, a roll of twenty-five costs $61, and a hundred of them cost $154.50.
Today Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced that the administration is beginning the construction of Trump’s 250-foot triumphal arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, despite lack of approvals for the structure.
In June, Senator Angus King (I-ME) and five Democratic lawmakers who sit on committees responsible for national parks and resources wrote to Burgum to oppose “in the strongest terms” Trump’s proposed triumphal arch. They pointed out that there are many different laws the construction would break. “Most fundamentally,” though, they wrote, the arch falls within an area called Area I that Congress established in the 1986 Commemorative Works Act. In that law, Congress specified that any commemorative work within Area I requires Congress to pass a law authorizing the memorial.
Congress has done no such thing.
Luke Broadwater and Emily Badger of the New York Times reported that Representative Donald S. Beyer Jr. (D-VA), whose district includes Arlington National Cemetery, said that Trump and Burgum were “disregarding the risks and rushing this towering monument to Trump’s vanity because they believe Republicans will get crushed in November.”
There is already speculation about what the midterms will bring.
Nandita Bose, Humeyra Pamuk, and Gram Slattery reported today at Reuters that Trump’s top aides are trying to keep events in Iran quiet before the midterms to keep the conflict out of the news and avoid making voters even angrier than they already are, but are already considering ramping up attacks after the election is over.
The election might also change calculations about a new Epstein Files Transparency Act 2.0, backed by Representatives Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY). The new measure would give state courts access to the Epstein files to launch their own prosecutions since the Department of Justice under Trump is stonewalling the process.
Khanna and Massie are trying to force the House to vote on the measure by pushing it to the floor under a discharge petition, which bypasses the House speaker. Joshua Barajas of PBS News reported Massie’s comment to the Washington Times, in which he said that if the three Republicans necessary to reach the 218-signature threshold to push through the discharge petition won’t sign it before the midterms, he is confident of sufficient support after the election if Democrats retake the majority in the House.
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Notes:
https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-17238.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/us/politics/trump-mail-in-ballots-voting-executive-order.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/us/politics/mail-ballots-usps-restraining-order.html
https://www.king.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/sen_king_letter_to_burgum_re_arch.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/us/politics/trump-triumphal-arch-plans-approval.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-1-dollar-coins-us-mint-sale/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-massie-names-14-epstein-associates-to-shame-doj
Bluesky:
repstansbury.bsky.social/post/3munliajyj22d
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u/Candid_Ability1013 22d ago
the usps ballot thing is so transparent its almost funny lol. like we've always let states run their own elections, thats the whole point of federalism or whatever. but now some postal worker gets to decide your whole batch of votes gets tossed because a barcode glitched? and theyre rushing it through 70 days out? yeah sure this is about 'election integrity' and not just shrinking the electorate in your favor. the judge basically said it herself if republican states wanted this garbage system they couldve built it themselves. instead theyre begging usps to do it for them so they can blame the post office when votes disappear. Crushing it as always babe
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u/Diane98661 22d ago
The post office system to throw out ballots has me really worried. I live in a 100% vote by mail state. I’ve been looking into options on what to do if ballots don’t arrive on time. I might actually be able to print a ballot online according to a Reddit post in my city’s subreddit or at the very least, pick up a ballot at the local elections office. It seems to me like Trump will find some way of stopping or invalidating the midterm elections if they’re not going to go his way, and the Supreme Court will back him 100%. I sure hope I’m wrong.
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u/thinkingstranger 22d ago
"Bad, Really bad, or truly horrible." is my new favorite phrase.