Six Days Before Midterms, Democrats Lead Reuters/Ipsos Poll by 9 as Election Officials Brace for Federal Interference

Since the Justice Department's election-season moves against Rep. Eric Swalwell, James Comey and Rep. Ilhan Omar became public earlier this week, the focus has shifted to what federal authorities might do on Election Day itself, Tuesday, Nov. 3, and in the weeks of vote counting after.

The campaign picture first, because it explains why both parties are on edge.

The numbers six days out

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Oct. 22-26 has Democrats at 47% and Republicans at 36% nationally. Counting undecided voters' leanings, it is 50% to 41%.

President Trump's approval in that survey sits at 32%, up one point. Seventy-three percent of U.S. adults said the cost of living is heading in the wrong direction.

National numbers do not decide the Senate. Individual states do, and several are close.

In Texas, Democrat James Talarico and Republican Sen. candidate Ken Paxton are virtually tied in polling, in a state where Democrats have not won a Senate race since 1988. Trump held two rallies in Texas on Tuesday, Oct. 27. Al Jazeera's Phil Lavelle, reporting from Corpus Christi, counted four Trump visits to the state in seven weeks, twice the number at the comparable point before the 2024 election. Lavelle also said local analysis shows more Republicans than Democrats have voted early, but cautioned that Talarico is courting Republicans unhappy with Trump.

Michigan's Senate race between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers is also tight.

Trump is scheduled to campaign today, Oct. 28, in Chillicothe, Ohio. It is his third Ohio trip this month and the fifth by him or Vice President JD Vance. Ohio is a state Trump carried by 11 points in 2024, and Republican Sen. Jon Husted is facing Democrat Sherrod Brown. Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are campaigning in Georgia for Democrats.

Fears of federal interference

TIME reports that the administration recently sued in a way that could block certification of an Alaska Senate race, that officials threatened California election officials with jail time, and that officials suggested a Minnesota Senate result could not be trusted if the Republican loses. TIME also says some Trump allies are urging him to consider martial law to seize ballots. Those claims come from TIME's reporting and have not been independently confirmed here.

Federal law bars troops or armed federal personnel from being stationed at polling places to interfere with a federal election. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Democratic senator in late August that the military has "no plan" to deploy to polling locations.

Trump has been less definitive. He told TIME in September that he did not "rule anything out," including a federal emergency declaration on Election Day or ICE agents at the polls.

At least three lawsuits have been filed to preemptively block ICE from polling sites. One of them alleges that a Colorado county sheriff's office, already cooperating with ICE, conducted "warrant checks at polling locations" this year.

A Reuters examination published Oct. 14, based on interviews with more than 50 election officials, voting experts and election lawyers, found that officials broadly expect legal guardrails to hold. The Constitution gives states wide authority over election administration, and courts have recently ruled against administration efforts to restrict mail-in voting and obtain confidential voter-roll data. Many of those interviewed said the larger risk is not one dramatic intervention but a drip of investigations, lawsuits and disputes that could slow certification and erode confidence in close races.

What the White House says

The administration rejects the premise. White House spokesperson Lauren Bis told Reuters the goal is to safeguard election integrity and voting security. She accused Democrats of undermining confidence in elections by opposing the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register and photo ID to vote.

"President Trump is absolutely right," Bis said. "We fix this now, or we lose our country." The bill has stalled in the Republican-controlled Congress.

Proof of citizenship and photo ID are mainstream positions, and the administration has been in a legal fight with dozens of states over whether noncitizens are on voter rolls. Election experts cited by TIME and Reuters say noncitizen voting is rare. Critics, including former CIA Director John Brennan on MS NOW on Monday, argue the fraud claims are a pretext. Brennan said Trump and Attorney General Todd Blanche are trying to "tilt" the midterms by using the Justice Department and Homeland Security to "disrupt the day of the election or to actually challenge the certifications afterward." Brennan is a longtime Trump critic, and he offered no specific evidence for that claim. Blanche has not been quoted here responding.

On the ground, the argument plays out in places like Barry County, Michigan. Clerk Sarah VanDenburg trained a dozen poll workers on tabulators, photo ID checks and absentee ballots, while Sheriff Dar Leaf has spent six years circulating claims that foreign nationals hacked county voting machines in 2020. He is now investigating claims that Michigan's voter rolls are inflated with noncitizens. CBC reports that studies show noncitizen voting is extremely rare and that little evidence supports the claims.

Foreign meddling, too

The interference worry is not only domestic. AP reported that digital forensics experts tie fake, AI-generated videos targeting Democratic Senate candidates to Storm-1516, a Russian disinformation network active in 2024.

One video, styled as a TV newscast, falsely attributed accusations against Brown to former intern Haya Akbik. "It's my name, it's my reputation, making this allegation, and it's just completely false," she told the AP.

A similar clip aimed at Talarico posed as a confession from a former student. Dartmouth's Hany Farid called the Brown video a "fairly low-tech fake." Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis blamed "AI deepfakes, foreign bots, and conspiracy theories."

The next concrete test comes Tuesday. The three pending suits over ICE at polling sites and the Alaska certification case will show how far courts are willing to go before votes are even counted.