General U.S. NewsNov 2, 2026·3 min read

Trump makes one last attempt to get the Supreme Court to interfere with the midterms

Vox – Immigration

1d ago

Trump makes one last attempt to get the Supreme Court to interfere with the midterms

Summary

What is even the point of Trump’s California ballots lawsuit? Here’s a hot take: The outcome of the 2026 midterms is unlikely to turn on close races in California. California has no statewide races that are expected to be close, and it is a solid blue state that recently redrew its US House maps to maximize Democratic gains. So it’s a bit baffling that the Trump administration’s final bid to get the Supreme Court to interfere in the midterms, at least before Election Day, focuses on California. So Trump wants the Supreme Court to interfere in the 2026 midterms based on a list of 20,000 names that is completely unreliable, and that may not identify a single actual person who is both registered to vote in California and a noncitizen. And, on top of that, Trump’s lawyers are not even asking the Supreme Court to disenfranchise these 20,000 people — at least not yet. Just in case there’s any doubt, there is absolutely no legal basis whatsoever for the Supreme Court to rule in favor of Trump’s administration. Additionally, as the Supreme Court said less than two weeks ago in Scanlan v. The state says that segregating these ballots “would be a logistical and administrative nightmare” because the list “does not contain the information necessary to identify voters; the Registrar has no established system for segregating ballots; and trying to create one now risks shutting down the system the Registrar needs to run the entire election.” Additionally, Bennett writes, California “also lack[s] the ability to verify voters’ citizenship status before December 4, 2026—the deadline for counties to certify their election results to the Secretary of State.” Given these flaws in Trump’s case, it is unlikely that even this Supreme Court will order California to set aside the contested ballots. But it is still unclear what Trump is trying to accomplish by bringing the California case to the justices on the day before an election , when even this Supreme Court is unlikely to rule in Trump’s favor.

From the source

The Trump administration’s final bid to get the Supreme Court to interfere in the midterms, at least before Election Day, focuses on California. | Win McNamee/Getty Images Here’s a hot take: The outcome of the 2026 midterms is unlikely to turn on close races in California. California has no statewide races that are expected to be close, and it is a solid blue state that recently redrew its US House maps to maximize Democratic gains. So it’s a bit baffling that the Trump administration’s final bid to get the Supreme Court to interfere in the midterms, at least before Election Day, focuses on California. On Monday, the eve of the election, President Donald Trump’s Justice Department asked the justices to order California to “segregate” as many as 20,000 ballots and place them in a special pile where they may never be counted. The case emerges out of a list of over 20,000 names that the Trump administration first sent to California on October 13, asking election officials to separate thei

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