The most dangerous days start now
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I was a lawyer at Democratic headquarters in 1994, when Republicans gained control of the House for the first time in 40 years. I was there when Barack Obama swept into office and brought with him a 60-seat majority in the Senate and 257 seats in the House.
Yet in some respects, what we saw on Tuesday was even more dramatic.
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Democrats did not just recapture both chambers. They did it by winning seats that Republicans gerrymandered last year to prevent exactly this result, and by winning in states Donald Trump carried by double digits in 2024.
Those gerrymanders backfired, pushing even more seats into the Democrats’ column. Trump’s historic unpopularity hung around Republicans’ necks and lifted Democrats.
But amid all the joy and celebration, we must not forget that this election was held in the shadow of Trump’s relentless assault on voting. Over the past two years, he has issued executive orders limiting voting and tried to enact new voter suppression laws.
At the tip of the spear has been the Department of Justice. Under Attorney General Todd Blanche, it has prosecuted Trump’s political opponents. It has threatened election officials for refusing to disregard state election laws.
The DOJ has sued and sued, and lost and lost. Its record in voting and election cases is two wins and 31 losses. And it is not done.
Ballots are still being counted, and important races have yet to be called. As I have said before, the most dangerous period in any election is the days immediately after it.
That is when, in 2020, Trump began his barrage of lawsuits. It is when the Big Lie was born.
On Tuesday evening, as the returns came in and the shape of the night became clear, Weijia Jiang, CBS News’ White House correspondent, posted on social media that “the president is watching returns with cabinet members, senior staff, and advisors tonight…. Trump is not planning to push officials not to certify results or declare martial law, but they will be checking for irregularities.”
That is how far we have fallen. That is how dangerous a moment we are in.
For weeks, I have warned that we are in the midst of a constitutional crisis. The fact that a network reporter felt the need to confirm that Trump will not try to block certification or declare martial law shows how close we have come to losing our democracy.
In the days ahead, I expect my law firm will be fighting to ensure that every lawful vote is counted and that Democratic candidates prevail. We will no doubt find ourselves in court against Republican lawyers and the DOJ.
These fights won’t affect control of Congress, but they will determine how much room Democrats have to maneuver in both chambers. They will also set the stage for real oversight of, and accountability for, a president who has so far operated without either.
But the fights in court will be only part of the story. Trump used his 2020 defeat to build a movement around the Big Lie of election denial. He will no doubt try to do the same now.
Democrats have an opportunity to do the opposite: to use this victory to strengthen our elections rather than tear them down. They should seize this moment to learn from Trump’s attacks on our elections and our democracy.
That starts with laying out a more ambitious agenda to limit the ability of Trump, or any president, to threaten an election the way he threatened this one.
It also requires accelerating the growth of a new pro-democracy media ecosystem to match the one the right wing has spent years building.
Democracy Docket is part of that effort, and it depends on readers like you.
As I noted at the start of this essay, we are keeping our paywall down for the rest of the week for those of you who rely on our work. If now is a good time for you, I ask that you please consider becoming a premium member. Now — at this critical moment in history — is the perfect time to join our team.
In the days ahead, I will have more to say about how I can best serve this growing movement. For now, I’m going back to work.