Trump Cries Fraud, Feds Make Arrests

Ballot paper with pen on wooden surface — Photo: Scott Habermann / Shutterstock

President Trump says the 2026 midterms were not honest, and federal agents have already arrested dozens of noncitizens for illegal voting across the country.

Story Snapshot

Trump posted on Truth Social questioning whether the midterm election was “honest” after Republicans lost Congress.
The Justice Department charged dozens of noncitizens with illegal voting and fraudulent registration before Election Day.
Homeland Security reported roughly 160 arrests tied to a nationwide noncitizen voter fraud crackdown.
Election officials and fact-checkers say they found no evidence of widespread machine tampering or mass noncitizen voting.

Trump Questions Election Results After GOP Losses

President Trump took to Truth Social Monday morning and asked, “Does anybody really believe that this election was honest?” The post came less than a week after Republicans lost control of Congress and several of Trump’s preferred candidates were defeated in what reporters called a brutal rout. Trump pointed to voting machine problems and illegal voting as reasons to doubt the outcome, a theme he has returned to for years before accepting final results.

Trump has long said he would accept election results only if he believed the vote was run honestly, a condition he first used before his 2016 win and repeated again before his 2020 loss. That history gives his midterm comments extra weight with supporters who remember past disputes, even as critics note he has made the same claim before nearly every election in the last decade.

Federal Agents Arrest Noncitizens Nationwide

The claims arrive alongside real arrests. The Justice Department announced charges against 63 people, including four foreign nationals, for illegal voting and fraudulent registration across several states just before the midterms. In California, federal agents arrested 11 foreign nationals accused of registering and voting in U.S. elections while living here as lawful permanent residents, a status that does not allow voting.

Homeland Security said its broader crackdown has produced about 160 arrests nationwide tied to roughly 1,600 suspected cases of noncitizen voting, according to a senior Homeland Security Investigations official. Trump allies, including Kari Lake and Liz Harrington, have used these cases to argue the election was rigged, even after Trump himself told The New York Times he accepted the results showing Republicans losing badly.

Donald Trump just posted some more BS about election fraud AGAIN. He still hasn’t presented information of any election fraud in six years. Of course, he still claims fraud, without evidence.People believe him so strongly, they attacked the capitol for him on J6. That’s a threat.

— Mark Gerencher (@Detleb) November 9, 2026

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said agents would keep combing voter rolls after the election to track down unlawful voters, warning noncitizens who voted illegally that “we will find you”. For conservatives who have pushed for stricter voter ID and citizenship checks for years, these arrests confirm long-standing worries that loopholes in voter registration systems let ineligible people cast ballots.

Officials Push Back on Fraud Claims

Local and state election officials said ahead of time that they were ready to run a secure election, and election experts and immigrant-advocacy groups say the administration has not shown noncitizen voting was widespread. A separate fact-check found no evidence that voting machines deliberately switched votes, attributing reported glitches to human error or touchscreen alignment issues rather than fraud.

Post-election audits, a routine part of every election, are meant to confirm that machines worked properly and that votes were counted correctly, giving officials and voters added confidence in the results. A Brennan Center review found noncitizen voting historically affects a tiny fraction of ballots, with one study locating just 30 suspected cases out of 23.5 million votes cast in 42 jurisdictions with large immigrant populations.

What Comes Next

None of this amounts to proof that the 2026 midterm outcome itself was changed by fraud, and no court or official audit has overturned any race based on these arrests. Still, for voters already frustrated by years of loose immigration enforcement and election-system trust issues, real charges against noncitizens for illegal voting are not nothing, even if they fall short of proving a stolen election. Expect Trump and administration officials to keep demanding tighter voter rolls and stronger citizenship verification as audits continue.