President Donald Trump is setting up a narrative that the 2026 midterm elections will be fraudulent before voters even cast ballots, his biographer Michael Wolff says, arguing Trump’s vigorous promotion of the contentious SAVE America Act is a deliberate effort to prepare an excuse for potential Republican defeats this November.
Wolff, co-host of The Daily Beast’s “Inside Trump’s Head” podcast, told co-host Joanna Coles on Tuesday, March 24 that Trump understands his signature voting overhaul lacks the votes to clear Congress — and that is intentional. Wolff says Trump is advancing the bill to create a preemptive storyline: if Republicans lose seats, he can blame Democrats for blocking election changes.
The SAVE America Act, which the Senate was debating before adjourning for a planned recess until April 13, would require proof of citizenship to register, largely curtail mail-in voting, ban transgender women from women’s sports, and ban gender-affirming surgeries for minors through amendments. Brennan Center research finds over 21 million Americans lack easy access to the documents the bill demands, meaning nearly 10% of voting-age people could face major new obstacles to voting.
On March 26, Democrats blocked a Republican amendment that many saw as the GOP’s best chance to advance the bill since floor debate began on March 17, a setback that helped lead the Senate to recess without a vote. Some supporters have suggested using budget reconciliation to skirt the 60-vote filibuster requirement, though procedural limits make that route highly unlikely. Even with slim odds, Trump has made the bill’s passage a key condition in talks to reopen the Department of Homeland Security after a partial shutdown in its sixth week, demanding DHS funding — including pay for unpaid TSA workers facing record callouts — be tied to the SAVE Act.
Multiple polls show the 79-year-old president and his party trailing badly in approval. A Reuters/Ipsos survey found just 36% approve of Trump’s performance, down from 40% the prior week. The Silver Bulletin average puts his net approval at -16.7 as of March 28, a new second-term low. Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot by 6 points, and with the usual trend favoring the out-party as midterms near, forecasters see a genuine risk Republicans could lose control of the House.
Factors fueling voter discontent include Trump’s war with Iran, launched on Feb. 28 in coordination with Israel without congressional authorization and now in its fifth week; the ongoing DHS shutdown that has left 100,000 federal employees unpaid; the deployment of ICE agents to airports; and internal clashes among Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner over Middle East policy.
Just before 2 a.m. on Tuesday, Trump reposted on Truth Social his long-debunked claim that non-U.S. citizens vote in U.S. elections at large scale. “Democrats are desperate to keep illegals, no matter how bad or dangerous they may be, in the Country. They want them to VOTE!” the president wrote at 1:48 a.m.
State audits paint a different picture. Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger found only 20 noncitizens registered to vote in an October 2024 audit of 8.2 million registrants, and only nine had ever voted. Michigan’s Department of State identified 15 instances of non-citizens voting in the 2024 presidential election — 0.00028% of the more than 5.7 million ballots cast.
Wolff says Trump’s persistence with the voter-fraud storyline serves a tactical role beyond policy: “It’s just what is to his advantage is just the narrative that the election system in the United States is broken.”
The biographer noted Trump uses this tactic repeatedly in his career. When Coles remarked that Trump deems the system flawless when he wins and rigged when he loses, Wolff responded bluntly: “Yes, but he’s not going to win. So the system is going to be rigged.”
The White House replied with a statement from Communications Director Steven Cheung: “Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s*** and has been proven to be a fraud. He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
As the 2026 midterms near, Wolff’s analysis suggests Trump is preparing not for a win but for a familiar post-loss response: accusing the system of being rigged. Whether the SAVE Act succeeds or fails, it appears aimed at supplying the president with talking points should Republicans suffer losses this November.
With multiple crises at home and abroad, an aimless war, gasoline prices up nearly a dollar per gallon since February, and federal workers unpaid, voters will decide whether to accept another round of election denial from a president whose assertions of widespread voter fraud have repeatedly been refuted by officials, including some in his own party.
