Bob Sheak, Feb 15, 2026
Arlene Sheak edited
Trump takes a position in the campaigns prior to the elections in 2016 (won), 2020 (lost), and 2024 (won), that if he wins, the election was fair, but if he loses, it was rigged against him. He insists that, if the votes had been counted as they should have been in 2020, he would have – should have – won the presidency. But whether he eventually wins or loses, he always tells the public prior to an election that any defeat is due not to his unpopularity but to unfair tactics by the other side. The same is true after a lost election.
In other words, Trump tells us he lost the 2020 presidential election because it was rigged by Democrats against him. His opponents call this “election denialism.” It goes this way. If he loses, as the evidence indicates he did in 2020, it was not a legitimate loss because, in his view, many votes were cast illegally and/or poll workers failed to do their work honestly. If he wins, then the election is a conformation of his prowess and intelligence. Either way, he thinks of himself as the winner. This logic applies to all elections, policies, and issues of public importance. With respect to the 2020 election, the overwhelming verifiable evidence tells the 2020 election was conducted fairly, as confirmed by dozens of state audits and re-audits of the voting.
A record of Trump’s Election Denialism
Tal Axelrod examines this issue in an article published on Sept. 8, 2022, (https://abcnews.com/Politics/timeline-donald-trumps-election-denial-claims-republican-politicians/story?id=88168408). He writes,
“Trump himself, from the 2016 primary through today, has made election denialism a central part of his campaigns and of Republican politics — and also helped make it a motivating issue for other politicians, including those who once had criticized him for it.”
“And while ABC News/Ipsos polling this year showed a majority of Americans sharply disapproved of Trump’s role in attacking the 2020 election, including a fifth of Republicans, that same survey also indicated a majority of Republicans believed he didn’t really lose,” according to Axelrod.
But Trump denialism goes back even before he entered policies.
Axelrod: “Trump has a long history of crying foul in contests he doesn’t win, including previously saying that the ‘Emmys are all politics’ after his reality TV show, ‘The Apprentice,’ never won an award. He also labeled then-President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection ‘a total sham.’”
It was in the 2016 presidential election, ‘in which he lost the popular vote to Clinton but won the Electoral College, that he began making claims of fraud more consistently.’ Axelrod continues: “In the final weeks of the 2016 race, he refused to confirm whether he would accept a defeat. Afterward, he insisted, despite the evidence to the contrary, that he had only lost the popular vote “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”
Axelrod gives the example of how Trump said before the 2020 election that
“the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.”
‘After his defeat by Joe Biden, his claims became more frequent, with Trump swiftly leveling vocal yet baseless allegations in the early hours after Election Day.
“On Nov. 7, 2020, as news organizations correctly projected that Biden had defeated him, Trump tweeted the opposite: ‘I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!’ he claimed. In a statement, he vowed that ‘this election is far from over’ and promised to pursue legal challenges. (Ultimately no such court cases affected the 2020 race.)”
“And in mid-December 2020, after the Electoral College had officially selected Biden as the next president, Trump continued to say the result should be overturned: “This Fake Election can no longer stand. Get moving Republicans,” he tweeted.”
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In protest of the “stolen” 2020 election results, Trump incites attacks on the Capitol
The Jan. 6,2021, assault on the Capitol is a glaring and unprecedented example of the lengths to which Trump will go in rejecting the widely authenticated 2020 presidential election.
Trump did not accept any of this evidence at the time and went on to encourage thousands of people, including extremist groups, to come of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, the day on which the election results were to be certified. In short, Trump and his close associates wanted to do all they could to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power, thinking their cause was righteous.
Author Nora Neus documents what occurred during that day in her book, 24 Hours at the Capital: An Oral History of the January 6th Insurrection (publ. 2025). Here are a few telling points from the book that implicate Trump and demonstrate that the attempted insurrection would not have occurred without Trump’s encouragement. For example, she quotes Jacob Glick, investigator for the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capital. Glick told Neus, “You need the paramilitary movement to exist. You need the white power movement to exist. But you also need Donald Trump to be seen as an ally. And you also need Donald Trump as that ally to tell them to do something. And without all of those things happening, January 6th wouldn’t have happened” (pp. xii-xiii).
The rioters breached the police barriers and reached Senate side of the Capitol building on 2:10 P.M. They first entered the building at 2:11 P.M. Trump watched the television coverage of the events. It wasn’t until 4:03 P.M. that Trump made a videoed statement to the insurrections,
“I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from me. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home now….we love you, you’re very special.”
Neus points out, “Almost immediately, rioters saw the video and began to disperse” (p. 141).
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An update on the “loving” relationship between Trump and the insurrectionists
When Trump narrowly won the presidential election in 2024, one of the first things he did as president was to pardon about 1,500 men and women who had been convicted for their participation in the Jan. 6 riot. Sasha Abramsky considers the implications in an article for Truthout, Feb. 3, 2025 (https://truthout.org/articles/traumps-january-6-pardons-were-a-green-light-to-far-right-paramilitaries).
Sasha Abramsky is a freelance journalist and a part-time lecturer at the University of California at Davis. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, New York Magazine, The Village Voice and Rolling Stone. He also writes a weekly political column. Here are excerpts from the article.
“With President Donald Trump’s pardoning of more than 1,500 people charged with offenses relating to the January 6 insurrection, and his description of them as ‘hostages”’ rather than as insurrectionists, paramilitarism is now firmly back on the national agenda.
“Trump’s actions in freeing these men and women and lionizing their actions in 2021 was made all the more shocking by the fact that, with a few exceptions, Republican members of Congress — many of whom themselves had to flee the mob on January 6 — largely responded without criticism.”
‘That silence in the face of a relentless attack on the judicial system speaks volumes, suggesting that it has become a policy goal of the GOP to historically rehabilitate the perpetrators of that shameful attack four years ago — and those who egged them on — and to normalize the truly ghastly idea of a paramilitary praetorian guard standing ready to do the ‘Great Leader’s’ dirty work.”
“Now, with Trump running roughshod over his political opposition, and the full force of the federal government being mobilized to rewrite the history of January 6 and lionize its perpetrators, not-very-subtle signals are being sent that Trumpism welcomes violence — just so long as it is violence carried out on its behalf.”
“By pardoning the January 6 insurrectionists, the president has effectively condoned those who commit violence on his behalf….”
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Trump now worries 2026 midterms will be stolen from him
There are echoes of the 2021 attack reflected in Trump’s current concerns about upcoming congressional and senatorial elections to be held in the 2026 midterm elections. Trump and the Republican Party are doing what they can to bolster Republican candidates. They are gerrymandering congressional districts in ways to favor Republicans. They are talking about sending ICE enforcers to voting places in Democratic strongholds to intimidate voters. With Democrats gaining political momentum in early 2026, Trump has even talked about possibly taking the extraordinary step of instituting “The Insurrection Act,” which would postpone elections altogether because of public turmoil and disruption.
The Insurrection Act
Juliana Kim, Alana Wise report for NPR about Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act (https://www.npr.org/2026/01/15//nx-s1-5678612/minneapolis-insurrection-act-trump-threats). They write,
“The act is one way the president can send troops to states to restore law and order…allow armed forces to carry out law enforcement functions, such as making arrests and conducting searches.” The law could also permit the military to protect federal buildings and carry out immigration enforcement.”
Kim and Wise refer to statements Trump made on Truth Social: “If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.”
In response to Trump’s comments, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said the president triggered the demonstrations by sending thousands of federal agents to Minnesota. He argued there were no grounds to invoke the Insurrection Act.” Ellison added, “If Donald Trump does invoke the Insurrection Act, I’m prepared to challenge that action in court.”
According to William Banks, professor emeritus of law at Syracuse University and the insurrection act is loosely defined and gives broad deference to the president. He adds, “It’s incredibly open-ended and grants him a dramatic amount of discretion to federalize an incident.” Furthermore, “The law also does not mention time constraints on the troop deployments. Nor does it involve Congress in the process to maintain checks and balance.”
It could also be instituted to buttress Republican campaigns in 2026.
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Trump’s fear of being impeached if Democrats win midterms
He is particularly worried about the 2026 midterm elections. Journalist Megan Lebowitz reports that Trump believes that if Republicans lose the midterms he will be (https://www.abcnews.com/politics/2026-election/trump-predicts-impeachment-if-republicans-lose-2026-midterms-rcna252604). The article was published on Jan. 6, 2026. Here is some of what she writes.
President Donald Trump had a warning for Republicans on Tuesday [Jan. 3]:
“‘You got to win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,’ Trump said in a speech at a House Republican policy retreat. ‘I’ll get impeached.’”
Lebowitz reminds readers that Trump is the only president to have been impeached twice in the House, adding that supporters of the move in the Senate didn’t have the necessary two-thirds supermajority of votes to convict him in either of the cases. For details on how the process works, go to https://usa.gov/impeachment.
Previous impeachments
“Trump was first impeached in 2019 on charges stemming from accusations that he tried to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, in part by withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally approved military aid, as a way to damage Biden’s election chances. Trump was impeached a second time, in 2021, for his role in the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as he tried to overturn his loss to Biden.”
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Concluding Thoughts
Given his record, Trump will utilize every means available to him to buttress his and Republican upcoming political prospects. The 2026 midterm elections will have a great effect on whether Trump will gain or lose some power. If there is a Democratically controlled House and/or Senate, his chance of advancing his right-wing agenda and power will be significantly reduced.
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