Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey has accused President Donald Trump of laying the groundwork to rig the 2026 midterm elections, warning that the administration may deploy ICE agents and federal forces to polling places to intimidate voters and justify seizing control of elections.
The 55-year-old Democratic governor made the explosive allegations during an appearance on The Daily Beast Podcast released Tuesday night, arguing that Trump is creating a “specter of fraud” as a pretext to “exercise emergency powers and go in and take over elections.”
“I don’t think we should underestimate the lengths that the president and the administration will go to come November,” Healey said, pointing to Trump’s pattern of deploying federal immigration authorities and military forces into Democrat-run cities over local objections.
The governor’s warning comes on the heels of Trump’s 108-minute State of the Union address—the longest in American history—during which the 79-year-old president baselessly claimed that “cheating is rampant in our elections” and accused Democrats of rigging outcomes. Trump’s approval rating has sunk to a five-year low, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, and he has repeatedly expressed worries about potential Republican losses in the midterms.
Healey described a calculated strategy by the Trump administration to undermine faith in American democracy, telling host Joanna Coles that Trump “pushes, pushes, pushes” to “sow these seeds” and “provide some justification for him to exercise emergency powers, put troops on the streets, to scare people away.”
The governor predicted federal agencies beyond ICE could be stationed around polling places, warning that the administration may deploy “every federal agency” near ballot-polling locations to discourage turnout.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed Healey’s concerns as conspiracy theories, telling The Daily Beast that “anything said on the Daily Beast podcast is equivalent to screaming into the void.” The episode has nevertheless attracted more than 100,000 views in less than two days.
During his State of the Union address, Trump urged lawmakers to pass the SAVE America Act, which would mandate photo IDs to vote, require proof of citizenship to register, and require states to run their voter rolls through a Department of Homeland Security database. Democrats have condemned the legislation as voter suppression that could disenfranchise millions of Americans.
Trump has spent years attacking the legitimacy of American elections and continues to push debunked claims that the 2020 election was stolen. During his recent address, he claimed his current term “should be my third term, but strange things happen”—a reference to his baseless assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Healey has taken aggressive action to counter federal immigration enforcement in Massachusetts. She recently filed legislation to ban ICE from courthouses, schools, hospitals, and places of worship—locations that had been protected under a longstanding Department of Homeland Security policy until Trump rescinded it on his first day back in office.
The governor said ICE is engaging in “unlawful and unconstitutional actions” that are “meant to intimidate and instill fear in our communities, including against United States citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights.”
Healey signed an executive order prohibiting the state from entering new agreements allowing local law enforcement to act as immigration agents, banning civil ICE arrests in non-public areas of state facilities, and blocking use of state property for immigration enforcement staging.
Heather Honey, a top Department of Homeland Security official and 2020 election denier, recently promised election officials there won’t be ICE presence at polling places, according to Politico. However, Healey doubts the assurance given Trump’s deployment of military forces including the National Guard and Marines in American cities.
Massachusetts has seen particularly aggressive ICE enforcement, with reports of agents operating in Boston, Chelsea, and Everett. The governor said her administration is preparing local officials and law enforcement for potential federal overreach during the midterm elections.
Healey said that officials are working to prepare local leaders, law enforcement, and residents by informing them about possible developments and the rights they have, stressing the need to address what the Trump administration is currently trying to do.
The dispute highlights growing friction between Democratic state officials and the Trump administration as the country approaches what many expect to be fiercely contested midterm elections. Healey, the first woman to serve as governor of Massachusetts and among the nation’s first openly lesbian governors, has become a prominent figure among Democratic leaders pushing back against federal overreach into state matters.
Trump’s push to transfer election authority from states to the federal government represents a fundamental shift in American democratic norms, with critics warning it could enable the kind of election interference Healey fears. The president declared at the World Economic Forum in January that “sometimes you need a dictator,” fueling concerns about his intentions regarding democratic institutions.