After years of whining about President Donald Trump disputing the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, former CNN anchor Jim Acosta and former MSNBC anchor Joy Reid are already floating conspiracy theories about the upcoming midterm elections.
During an appearance on journalist Wajahat Ali’s Substack, Reid predicted that the US will not have free and fair elections in 2026. “Whenever Democrats say to me … ‘we have to coalesce for 2026,’ I always add to the end of their sentence, ‘Yeah, assuming we actually have free and fair elections.”
Reid opined that “it’s insane, honestly, to just assume we’re going to have normal elections next year.”
As proof, Reid referred to Republicans passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. “To me, the fact that Republicans are still voting for the bill tells me that they’re not actually worried about being reelected,” she bloviated. “The way Trump is behaving, he’s not acting like somebody who worries that his party will lose power or that even if the party, even if somehow we had normal elections and Democrats took control of either House … he’s not acting like somebody who’s worried about the consequences of that.”
Reid further stated that Trump won’t leave office after his second term ends. “I think he intends to stay in office like Putin until he dies.”
🚨NEW: Joy Reid floats *paranoid conspiracy theories* about rigged 2026 midterms and Trump's plans to stay in power for life🚨
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) July 6, 2025
"I think it's insane, honestly, to just assume we're going to have normal elections next year. I don't assume that."
"[Republicans are] not actually… pic.twitter.com/ttdDL2Hk71
Last Tuesday, Acosta managed to take a break from staring at himself in the mirror to float the same theory during an interview with Democratic strategist James Carville. He surmised that Republicans could rig the midterm elections. "I don’t put anything past him — nothing — to try to call the election off, to do anything he can," Carville said. "He can think of things like that, that – that, you know, we can’t because we’re not accustomed to thinking like that. We always assume there’s going to be an election."
It’s amazing that leftists are already anticipating that they might not have any major wins in 2026. They are already making excuses for why they might fail to achieve any significant victories.
But these conspiracy theories are no surprise — even after they ranted and raved about the right’s theories about the 2020 election. They even tried to convince the public that Trump somehow rigged the 2024 election — without providing a shred of evidence, of course. Some even surmised that Elon Musk tampered with voting machines to swing the outcome of the race in Trump’s favor.
In fact, in the days after Democrats suffered their humiliating defeat last year, the term “Trump cheated” began trending on X. Many on the left called for a recount even though Trump’s victory was quite decisive.
Right now, it is far too early to tell how the next midterms will shake out. It is common that the party that did not win the prior presidential election would take back one or both chambers of Congress. But given today’s political dynamics, combined with the Democrats’ poor performance when former President Joe Biden was in office, anything can happen. But one thing is for sure: If Democrats lose again, they will already have their narrative prepackaged and ready to go.