What if Trump tries to cancel the elections?

Reviewed February 3, 2026

Let's address the elephant in the room… what if Trump tries to cancel the elections?

The answer is: He simply can't, no matter how hard he tries.

Midterm elections will take place in November 2026, and Donald Trump will not serve in the White House in 2029.

• Presidents cannot cancel elections (even by martial law), run for a third term (even as VP), or stay in office after their successor’s constitutionally scheduled Inauguration.
• Thanks to our decentralized election administration system, any attempt to bypass electoral guardrails would require the complicity of thousands of state and local officials. 

Yes, Trump will still try to subvert our elections, but we can (and must) stop him.

He will use every trick in the playbook to rig the outcomes in 2026 and 2028, but we will not surrender. We must:

• Protect free and fair elections with every tool at our disposal – see our election protection plan.
• Flip the U.S. House (and hopefully the Senate) in 2026 so we can stop our descent into authoritarianism and start holding the Trump regime accountable for its actions.
• Gain a federal trifecta in 2028 so we can end the MAGA era, heal and repair the damage done, and begin to deliver real progress.

See our full electoral strategy here.