Democratic state parties launched the “New Battlefield Project” on Monday, September 14, 2026, as part of preparations for possible federal intervention in the midterm elections. The operation intends to recruit 10,000 volunteers to guard polling places if armed federal officers appear, while activists and legal scholars are developing separate responses involving protests and guidance for judges.
The planning follows actions by President Donald Trump involving election administration, including attempts to impose proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration and a directive giving the Postal Service a central role in deciding which voters should receive mail ballots. States have begun sending ballots as Trump also seeks changes to election rules and has demanded that Republicans redraw congressional maps to create more safe House seats.
Activists are preparing mass protests if the administration tries to interfere with voting or ballot counting. Ezra Levin of the left-leaning group Indivisible described the preparations as exceptional, saying, “We have never prepared for an election sabotage event like we have now.”
Legal scholars, meanwhile, are distributing white papers advising judges about requests to authorize ballot seizures. That work was prompted by the Trump administration’s seizure of 2020 ballots and other election records in Fulton County, Georgia, based on old, disproven conspiracy theories. Rick Hasen, a UCLA Law professor and director of the university’s Safeguarding Democracy Project, also noted that Trump has expressed regret that he did not take more aggressive steps to overturn the 2020 result, including ordering the seizure of voting machines.
The contingency planning also reflects concerns arising from Trump’s first term, when he refused to accept his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden and attempted to overturn the vote. After returning to office, Trump appointed people who assisted those efforts, used the federal government to target political enemies and pardoned more than 1,000 people prosecuted over the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was intended to halt certification of Biden’s victory.
Hasen said the recent developments have moved previously unlikely scenarios into serious consideration. He also cautioned against unnecessarily frightening voters, describing the challenge as balancing alarmism against complacency as voting begins.