President Donald Trump questioned the integrity of last week’s midterm elections on Monday, writing on Truth Social, “Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest,” and asking how the polls could have been so wrong. He also alleged that some early voting ballot counts were so large they made it impossible for Republicans to win, and in recent days he has shared posts with graphs questioning voter turnout data. Al Jazeera described the posts as his first explicit public challenge to the integrity of the overall results, and reported that he provided no evidence of fraud or wrongdoing.
The posts reverse the position Trump took last week. He congratulated Democrats on a call with CBS News after their victories were announced, told Fox News the party “did a good job,” and told the New York Times that he “absolutely” accepted the results; in a 60 Minutes interview a day before the posts, he confirmed he had congratulated Democrats and said he was open to working with the incoming majority. Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, and a Pew Research analysis found pre-election polling had understated the Democratic margin by at least 2 points in 23 of 27 races for governor and the US Senate. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called the return to election denialism inevitable, and Megyn Kelly, who supported Trump in 2024, replied “Just stop” on X.