Trump questions midterm election results after previously accepting outcome

WASHINGTON − President Donald Trump cast doubt on the results of the midterm election, pushing unsubstantiated accusations of rigged election machines in a social media post, after previously accepting the blowout defeat for Republicans.

Like he has in previous elections, Trump on Nov. 9 reverted to making baseless assertions of voter fraud to explain last week's midterm triumph for Democrats.

"Does anybody really believe that this 'Election' was honest," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "How could the Polls be so wrong??? Some early voting 'dumps' were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote. It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter!"

Despite Trump suggesting midterm polls were "wrong," the vast majority of public surveys forecast a midterm blue tsunami that resulted in Democrats taking control of the House and Senate, flipping double-digit Republican House districts, and winning Senate races in historically Republican states such as Texas, Kansas and South Carolina.

Election officials across the country have also not raised major concerns about early voting or voting machines in the 2026 races. Trump's accusations come as Republican officials oversee elections in many of the reliably red states where Democrats found success for the first time in decades.

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Trump has a long history of denying election results when he or other Republicans lose and alleging voter fraud without evidence. Most notably, he worked to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden after making groundless voter-fraud claims, which came before the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. He refuses to accept the 2020 defeat to this date.

In other interviews since last week's midterm election, Trump has acknowledged the sweeping defeat for his party, which has been widely interpreted by political observers as a forceful repudiation of Trump's second term, particularly over his handling of the economy and the war in Iran.

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"I think if I was on the ballot it would have been a much different situation," Trump said. "But there's something beyond that. They didn't like the war. They didn't like the fact that gasoline went up."