Democrats Are Fielding Questions About Republicans’ Election Agenda

In her New Mexico district, Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury’s constituents are worried about what President Donald Trump may do to interfere with elections as November’s midterms creep closer.

She said constituents ask her: Is this election secure? What are we doing to make sure that our elections stay free and fair? And even, is this election going to happen?

“Pretty much any time I am interacting with constituents, especially crowds of folks back home, it is one of the top five questions I get asked,” Stansbury said of election concerns.

At a virtual February town hall, someone asked her: “How high is the confidence in Congress that our next election will be fair and true?”

“I can’t answer the question ‘are we confident or are we not confident’ because there are so many efforts in Congress and the courts through federal harassing of states and localities,” she answered. “What I can tell you is that New Mexico once again is taking every single precaution we can.”

These doubts stem from efforts in Washington to reshape elections. Trump has called on Republicans to “nationalize” elections, Congress is trying to pass a law to require proof of citizenship to vote, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the Voting Rights Act this summer, and the Department of Justice is suing states for their voter rolls. And in the states, legislatures are redrawing their congressional maps to favor their majority party.

And it’s left Democratic lawmakers, who are largely powerless in Washington, trying to figure out ways to safeguard elections through long-shot proposals and calls for their constituents to be civically engaged. They have little else to do to try to reassure their constituents.

“People also realize that if all things are being equal, and if it’s a level playing field, Democrats win,” Rep. Jason Crow told NOTUS at the Capitol. “But they know that this president is going to try to cheat. They know he’s going to try to suppress the vote.”

He said that his constituents are asking these questions because they see how fragile democracy is.

“It will be a free and fair election because we have a solid plan, and we’re going to fight hard, and there’s many aspects of what we’re going to do to ensure that,” Crow said. “People need to turn out, they need to speak up, and they need to have their vote heard.”

His constituents’ skepticism was evident at a town hall hosted by Crow last month in Aurora, Colorado.

“These folks that are changing our democracy, once they get tried, what types of sentences can they get?” one woman asked the lawmaker. The crowd applauded her question.

Crow replied at the town hall that he was not interested in revenge but wanted to protect his communities and country.

Similar interactions have happened in town halls held by lawmakers across the country in recent weeks.

At a virtual town hall hosted the same day as the State of the Union by Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, a moderator said that they received “an overwhelming number of questions about the SAVE Act and concerns about how that would affect Oregonians if it is passed.”

The SAVE America Act would, among its provisions, require proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections.

Republicans are eager to pass the bill to prevent voter fraud, which occurs in isolated instances but not on a large scale. The legislation faces an uphill battle in the Senate but has an advocate in Trump, who wants the SAVE America Act to be the party’s priority as the midterms approach.

Democrats and voting access advocates are concerned that the bill could disenfranchise several groups of voters, including married women who changed their last name and naturalized citizens who may not have a birth certificate or passport matching their driver’s license.

“When Trump is intent on undermining our Democratic republic and replacing it with a strongman state, the most dangerous piece of that effort is the manipulation of next November’s election,” Merkley said during the town hall.

Even in deep-blue states, people are concerned that elections may cease to exist.

“They will declare martial law, and we will never see elections again,” a constituent of Rep. Seth Moulton said at a Lynn, Massachusetts, town hall. “How can that be prevented?”

Moulton said many people ask him this question.

“Yeah, you should be ready for it. … There’s no silver bullet answer here,” Moulton said. “It matters to be a poll worker. … It matters to be poll observers. We’re going to have a lot of lawyers ready because they’re going to try to contest results, and we need to be able to fight back.”

Moulton introduced a bill in February that would ban the use of federal funds to deploy law enforcement or the military at polling locations without congressional approval, but it is unlikely to make it to the House floor.

In Hawaii, Rep. Jill Tokuda took several questions in February about elections: “What is Congress doing to take their power back to ensure that we have free and fair elections this year in the midterm elections?” “What do you see coming, especially for election safety?” “What else can I do here locally for elections?”

Other questions for Tokuda concerned the fate of democracy. “When we eventually have this fascist regime that has implanted itself in the executive branch and is not going to leave, what are we going to do to take that back?” one person at the town hall asked.

Trump has joked that he wants to seek a third term. A Republican lawmaker even introduced a resolution last year to alter the 22nd Amendment to allow him to do so.

Tokuda had little reassurance to offer constituents.

“I can’t say with 100% certainty that we are not in a situation where they would love for that to happen,” Tokuda said. “They are literally paving the road to try to get that to happen in the 2026 and 2028 election. Our democracy is absolutely on the line. … What we need Congress to do is to have the guts to do the right thing.”