By FMNN Staff | Nov. 3, 2026
Asked last week whether he would accept the results of today's midterms, President Trump said yes, "if they're honest elections," and walked away. In October he posted that big-city results "often take weeks to Rig, I mean, calculate." The White House says he just wants winners known on election night.
Nobody can tell you exactly what happens after the polls close. What we can tell you is what Trump and his allies have already done, what they've written down, and what they've set up for this election. Taken together, that record shows the likely playbook. Below, everything marked "watch for" is a projection. Everything else is on the record.
Part one: What they've already shown
The blueprint: Project 2025
Before the 2024 election, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 published a transition plan for the next conservative president. Its Justice Department chapter, written by former Trump DOJ official Gene Hamilton, proposed moving election-crime prosecutions out of the Civil Rights Division and into the Criminal Division. The Brennan Center reads the plan as a call to use a Reconstruction-era conspiracy law, Section 241, against election officials, including over routine practices like letting voters fix mistakes on mail-ballot envelopes. Its Homeland Security chapter took aim at CISA's work against election disinformation.
Much of that is now policy. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon describes her Civil Rights Division as "turning the train around." CISA, which used to run a 24/7 election-security operation, has lost about a third of its staff, and The New York Times reports it is largely sitting today out. Since May 2025 the DOJ has demanded unredacted voter rolls and sued 30 states plus D.C. Courts have tossed 27 of those suits, according to the Brennan Center.
The ballots: the FBI in Fulton County
On January 28, 2026, FBI agents served a sealed criminal search warrant on Fulton County, Georgia's election hub and drove off with roughly 650 to 700 boxes of 2020 material: every physical ballot, tabulator tapes, ballot images and voter rolls. Neither the county nor Georgia's secretary of state got advance notice. County leaders said they couldn't vouch for the chain of custody afterward. A federal judge ruled in May that the DOJ doesn't have to give the ballots back, and no charges have been announced. Georgia audited, recounted and certified the 2020 result years ago.
Why it matters tonight: it shows the federal government is willing to physically take election records from a Democratic-leaning county on the strength of fraud claims that recounts and courts have already rejected.
The machines: Colorado's Tina Peters and the plan to take them
Tina Peters is the former Republican clerk of Mesa County, Colorado. In 2021 she let an unauthorized person copy her county's voting-system hard drives, and passwords later surfaced online. A jury convicted her of seven counts, four of them felonies, and she was sentenced to nine years. Trump called her a "hostage" and announced a "pardon" that had no legal effect on a state conviction. Gov. Jared Polis commuted her sentence in May after Trump threatened Colorado's federal funding, and she was paroled June 1.
In October she was back at the White House. Former DOJ official Ed Martin says she met Trump in the Oval Office on Oct. 5 to talk "election integrity." The White House hasn't confirmed it. (FMNN covered the meeting in our earlier fact check: Has Trump's side "already done" every step to overturn the midterms?) Her lawyer told CPR News her plan is to "get control over the ballots" right after machine counting and recount them by hand. Peters and GOP election lawyer Cleta Mitchell are also pressing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to act against voting machines on national-security grounds, citing a 2019 Trump order on foreign-made technology. (Democracy Docket first reported this as a push to seize machines, then corrected it to regulate. Peters has called before for the Pentagon to seize them.)
There's a longer paper trail too. In December 2020, Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn urged Trump in the Oval Office to sign an order seizing voting machines. White House lawyers stopped it. In February 2026, Peters' lawyer Peter Ticktin and Jerome Corsi circulated a 17-page draft "national emergency" order, built on unproven claims of Chinese interference, that would ban mail ballots and voting machines and require hand counts. ABC's sources said Trump had reviewed versions of it. Trump later said he'd never heard of it.
Colorado is taking this seriously. Federal officials have asked for access to voting equipment in Colorado and been turned away by county clerks. Boulder County trained staff on what a federal warrant looks like. Adams County's clerk told KUNC this is the first time his office has ever planned for someone coming to "seize ballots or take machines." And the GOP nominee for Colorado secretary of state, James Wiley, has pledged to decertify every electronic voting machine and end mail voting if he wins.
The money and the messaging: Elon Musk
Musk vs. Soros, two cycles running:
2024: Musk put at least $277 million into backing Trump and Republicans (FEC filings via CBS News). OpenSecrets puts it near $291 million. A Soros-funded PAC spent about $60 million that cycle.
2026: Musk has given about $446 million, the most of any individual political donor in modern American history, per a Washington Post tracker of FEC data. Soros: about $102 million. CNN notes Musk has more than doubled Soros' 2022 record of roughly $177 million, the previous midterm high.
At least $150 million of Musk's money has gone to PACs backing Ken Paxton in Texas' Senate race. This morning he posted "Vote red today!" His stated reason: a Democratic sweep in 2028 could lead to D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood and a bigger Supreme Court, making America "a permanent one-party state."
The texts. In early October, Musk's America PAC texted voters in Colorado's competitive 8th District, in Weld and Adams counties, saying "Your ballot request is in." Colorado mails every voter a ballot automatically, so nobody had made a request. Election officials in Colorado and Washington state put out public warnings. Weld County's Republican clerk, Carly Koppes, said voters were calling to ask whether someone had filed something in their name. A Republican digital strategist told CNN the texts were "pretty standard get-out-the-vote tactics."
"I knew hours ago that Trump won." Musk was at Mar-a-Lago with Trump on election night 2024. Three accounts say he knew the outcome before the country did:
Joe Rogan, on his podcast with Theo Von days after the election, passing along what UFC president Dana White told him: "Apparently Elon created an app and he knew who won the election four hours before the results. So as the results were coming in, four hours before they called it, Dana White told me Elon was like 'I'm leaving, it's over, Donald won.'" Rogan added that he didn't know how Musk did it.
Musk himself posted a victory message on X at 10:32 p.m. Eastern, according to a widely shared timestamp comparison. Fox News called the race at 1:47 a.m. and CNN at about 5:30 a.m.
Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk's children, said in a video that surfaced this May that Musk left Mar-a-Lago early and texted her: "I knew hours ago that Trump won, my team has the best real-time data." She also says he sent her internal America PAC data before the election. FMNN has not seen screenshots of the text. St. Clair and Musk have had a very public falling-out, and Raw Story, which reported her claims, included no response from Musk.
What those accounts show is that Musk said he had his own real-time picture of the vote, and that he acted on it hours before the networks called the race. They don't show where that data came from, and they are not evidence that any vote was changed. Musk's America PAC ran one of the biggest door-knocking and turnout-tracking operations of 2024, and campaigns, parties and analysts routinely watch county returns and turnout in real time. Plenty of people watching closely read the trend early that night. Pennsylvania's Department of State told Snopes that "no voting system in Pennsylvania is ever connected to the internet," and Snopes found no evidence that Musk's Starlink was used to rig the election.
Still, voters are entitled to ask the question Rogan himself asked: what exactly was on that app, and who supplied it?
The "computers" line. The day before his 2025 inauguration, Trump said Musk "knows those computers better than anybody… those vote-counting computers," and that "we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide." The quote is real. Snopes found no evidence that it meant Musk touched any vote count, and none has surfaced since. Pennsylvania's results were certified and audited.
Part two: The playbook to watch, starting tonight
Step 1 — Tonight: claim the win, attack the count
Before: At about 2 a.m. on Nov. 4, 2020, with millions of ballots still out, Trump said "we did win this election," and he posted "STOP THE COUNT!" the next morning.
For 2026: In-person votes usually get reported first and mail ballots later, the so-called "red mirage." Trump's October post already treats slow counting as proof of rigging. A fake Trump post asking why anyone is "wasting time counting ballots" has spread online; Snopes and Lead Stories found he never wrote it.
Watch for: victory claims before races are called, and attacks on late-counted ballots in places like California, Detroit and Philadelphia.
The guardrail: Media calls aren't results; the official canvass is. In June, in Watson v. RNC, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that states may count mail ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive later.
Step 2 — The next 72 hours: federal muscle and "fraud" headlines
For 2026: The DOJ has sent about 1,000 monitors to all 50 states, which it calls its biggest monitoring effort ever. Monitors need local permission to get inside. Colorado, Indiana and Wyoming have limited them.
Watch for: DOJ or DHS statements about "irregularities" or noncitizen voting; Fulton-style requests or warrants for this year's ballots or machines; calls to send agents to counting centers.
The guardrail: States run elections. DHS told states in February there would be "no ICE presence at polling locations." Federal law bars armed federal personnel at polling places.
Step 3 — The courts
For 2026: The RNC says it has more than 180 election cases active in 37 states. On Trump's own order, the DOJ sued to block certification of Alaska's Senate race if GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan loses. A judge threw it out Sunday; the DOJ is appealing. The Supreme Court also blocked Trump's March 2026 mail-ballot order for this election.
Watch for: suits over provisional ballots, signature fixes and late mail ballots, and demands to "segregate" ballots.
The guardrail: Courts want evidence. After 2020, Trump and his allies lost 61 of 62 cases.
Step 4 — Certification: the county chokepoint
Before: Since 2020, at least 30 local officials in eight states have refused to certify on unsupported fraud claims. Courts ordered certification every time.
For 2026: Some of those officials say they'd do it again.
The guardrail: In every state, certification is a mandatory, ministerial duty. Courts can order it, and officials who refuse can face penalties.
Step 5 — January 3: Congress
Before: On Jan. 6, 2021, 147 Republicans voted to sustain objections to the presidential results. In 2025, Speaker Mike Johnson waited 50 days to swear in Democrat Adelita Grijalva, the longest delay on record.
For 2026: Each chamber judges its own members' elections. A losing House candidate has 30 days after certification to file a contest.
Watch for: contests in close Democratic wins, and pressure on the House Clerk over the roll of members-elect.
The guardrail: Federal law requires the Clerk to enroll everyone whose state certificate shows they were "regularly elected." In 1969 the Supreme Court ruled the House can't exclude a member-elect who meets the Constitution's requirements.
KEY DATES
Tonight, Nov. 3: Polls close; unofficial results start
Nov. 16 (noon): Florida county returns due · Nov. 17: Florida certifies
Nov. 9–24: County and state certification in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina
Dec. 1: Wisconsin certifies
About 30 days after each state certifies: House contest deadline
Jan. 3, 2027: New Congress sworn in
THE FLORIDA ANGLE
Florida counts fast. Mail ballots must arrive by 7 p.m. today, so there's no late "blue shift" here. A recount is automatic at a margin of 0.5% or less, and it goes to a hand recount at 0.25%. The state's new proof-of-citizenship and paper-ballot law (HB 991) doesn't take effect until Jan. 1, 2027, so today's rules are the same as 2024's.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Get results from your county supervisor of elections, not from screenshots.
Expect some states to count for days. That's normal.
Report problems to the Election Protection hotline, 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683), or the DOJ Civil Rights Division at 1-800-253-3931. If you're threatened, call 911 first.
Before you share a "Trump post," check his actual account.
WHAT THE OTHER SIDE SAYS
The White House says Trump wants fast, secure elections, and that his February call to "nationalize the voting" meant the SAVE Act, photo ID and ending no-excuse mail voting. Trump says he'd never heard of the draft emergency order. The RNC says its legal operation exists to "protect every legal vote." Cleta Mitchell argues voting machines are federally designated critical infrastructure that Commerce has a duty to secure. Musk says he's spending to stop one-party rule. Not every Republican is on board: Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said he opposes federalizing elections and called it a constitutional issue, and Republican clerks in Colorado, including Weld County's Carly Koppes and Matt Crane of the Colorado County Clerks Association, have publicly pushed back on the disinformation.
Sources
Newsweek, "Rig, I mean, calculate" post and White House response
Media Matters, Ticktin/Corsi draft and 2020 Oval Office meeting
Mother Jones, federal requests for Colorado and Missouri equipment
Spectrum News/OpenSecrets, $12 billion election; Musk and Paxton
Joe Rogan Experience #2226 with Theo Von (Rogan's account, about 13:40)