By José R. Cabañas Rodríguez on October 15, 2026 from Havana
Trump incited protestors attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021
There are two weeks left until the so-called midterm elections in the United States, in which—as happens every two years—all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate, and several state governorships, attorney general positions, and other elected offices are up for election.
The results of these elections are commonly used to gauge the level of support—or lack thereof—for the ruling party’s administration and, especially, the president. However, over the years, a number of distortions regarding the transparency of the process have accumulated; tools have been created to cast doubt on projections; and countless mechanisms have emerged to ensure that those elected in a given district or territory are not necessarily the ones who received the most votes.
In the case of the elections to be held on November 3, at least three exceptional circumstances converge.
First, there is great anticipation within the United States and around the world regarding the possibility that a partial or total defeat of the Republicans (in one or both chambers) might halt—or at least slow down—the destructive momentum of the phenomenon known as “Trumpism.”
Second, this is a moment in history marked by the widest range of tactics aimed against the popular vote—ranging from technological methods, such as the widespread use of artificial intelligence, the hacking of polling station databases, social media, and the theft and manipulation of voter data, to legal and regulatory measures, such as the succession of lawsuits in courts against polling stations or individual officials, redistricting, and even the massive injection of capital in support of one candidate or another, as well as large-scale speculation on the results across various betting systems.
Third, the country’s president is the person who, during the 2020 presidential election, led the largest recent use of force against the Electoral College’s verdict by inciting the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Upon returning to power in January 2025, he granted a presidential pardon to all those convicted for those events and has repeatedly stated that he will not recognize any result contrary to his interests, no matter how slight. Throughout his time in office during his first and second terms, he has been appointing judges to federal courts who will rule in his favor should any dispute reach those courts.
In these elections—perhaps more so than in any previous ones—beyond the votes and the electoral process itself, the possibility that Trump and his supporters will create one or more exceptional situations that delay or hinder the legal validation of specific or overall results will be a major factor.
Trump will avoid at all costs a scenario in which a potential Democratic majority in Congress makes him more vulnerable to a probable judicial impeachment process, or one that brings him or a member of his family closer to being charged in court for any of the long list of illegal acts in which they have been involved—ranging from tax fraud, to influence peddling, or illicit enrichment through the misuse of insider information.
In recent days, he has displayed enough evidence of his erratic behavior on foreign policy issues to influence the results: he has declared a nonexistent victory in the poorly planned and poorly executed war against Iran; he received with exclusive honors the head of state of the country that supposedly poses the greatest strategic risks to the United States; he sought an oil agreement with Russia, the arch-enemy, with the aim of reducing domestic fuel costs, momentarily turning his back on Ukraine’s spearhead against Moscow.
The rhetorical efforts of the current Republican Vice President and the Secretary of State to try to bring coherence to the actions of the Commander-in-Chief are noteworthy, whether through discourse on the rebirth of the so-called Western World or in defining the new risks posed by socialist ideas.
In this context, we can turn to a historical event that allows us to step out of the shadow of potential alarmism and simply say: the Republicans have done this before—even if it was in a presidential election.
On November 7, 2000, the presidential election took place, pitting the outgoing Democratic Vice President, Albert Gore, against the Republican heir to the Reagan-Bush duo, former Governor George W.
It was such a close race that on election night itself, the television networks—which at the time had not yet come to fear the dominance of the internet and digital media—made predictions about the final results that sparked verbal outbursts and legal actions from both sides of the political spectrum.
The spiral of conflict only came to a halt on December 12, when the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, declared Bush Jr. the winner. One small detail: the state that allowed him to secure 271 Electoral College votes to 266 was Florida. The 25 electoral votes from that state were awarded based on a margin of just 537 individual votes, out of approximately six million people who had cast their ballots. It was the first time in history that a candidate had won the popular vote by a margin of one million ballots, while the candidate who received the Electoral College’s endorsement had lost the popular vote.
This story would not be particularly remarkable if such results had been reached through a civilized vote count, if jostling and back-and-forth maneuvering had not prevailed, and finally, if the Cuban-American “conga” had not been involved. Incidentally, it was people of that background who broke into the Watergate building before the 1974 elections to steal the Democratic candidate’s data.
One of the three Florida counties (along with Broward and Palm Beach) where the courts ordered a manual recount in 2000 was precisely Miami-Dade, which, as is well known, was already home to the largest concentration of Cuban immigrants as well as political operatives who had taken over a significant number of bureaucratic and elected positions, ranging from the school board to the airport board of supervisors.
Although the local government was led by a young politician of Cuban origin—a Democrat and, therefore, a Gore supporter— he allowed the vote recount to be halted when a mob of Spanish-speaking citizens (and others) — not all of whom were Cuban — forcibly stormed the premises where the recount was taking place, coincidentally at the very moment the Republican candidate held a slim lead.
This incident was documented by filmmaker Billy Corben in a documentary titled “537,” originally aired on HBO, in reference to Bush’s negligible “winning” margin in Florida. This film was released in 2020 when its creator hoped a similar exceptional situation would occur then to ensure the continuation of the Trump era.
According to the eloquent Corben “That was the episode that marked the beginning of the extreme and even violent partisan division we see in today’s elections”.
According to an interview he gave to the EFE news agency in October 2020, Corben believed that “Miami (where Mar-a-Lago is located) is the canary in the coal mine. Things happen first in Miami and then spread throughout the country. When I saw all the talk in Washington about potential election problems (…), I decided it was time.”
Under the circumstances of 2026, Florida no longer represents the prize that can tip the scales one way or the other. After the state legislature overturned a 2024 referendum that would have restored voting rights to more than a million people with criminal records—along with certain changes to congressional district boundaries (gerrymandering)—the state is now considered an impregnable red (Republican) stronghold.
However, looking back at this precedent serves to affirm—in light of current speculation about possible pro-Trump reactions—that “they’ve done it before,” and they certainly didn’t go about it with kid gloves.
Trump is currently the U.S. president with the lowest level of public support since records began. But merely rejecting his mistakes and excesses in theory will not change history. An alternative must emerge from the Democratic side (or other forces) that brings together options for change and responds to discontent—above all, one that serves as a voice for the younger segments of the electorate. That absence marked the Harris-Walz defeat in 2024 and could still be the explanation for future disasters.
José R. Cabañas Rodríguez is Director of the International Policy Research Center (CIPI) in Havana, Cuba and former Cuban Ambassador to the US.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – US