President Donald Trump suffered yet another court humiliation Tuesday — indeed, the 25th in a row (and without exception) when it comes to his attempt to force states to provide him with their voter rolls, and thereby guarantee Republicans win the 2026 midterm elections.
“President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice suffered its 25th straight district court loss Tuesday in its nationwide campaign to force states to hand over unredacted voter registration data, after a federal judge in Washington rejected the department’s legal theory and dismissed the case with prejudice,” reported Democracy Docket’s Yunior Rivas on Tuesday. “U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson, appointed by former President Joe Biden, concluded that DOJ’s demand for Washington’s statewide voter registration list ‘violates federal law,’ joining what she described as a growing line of courts rejecting nearly identical lawsuits.”
She quoted Evanson as saying, “The Government’s reading of 52 U.S.C. § 20701 is not persuasive as a matter of statutory interpretation, nor is it consistent with the purpose of the CRA, the Court joins a growing, unanimous consensus of courts to find that the List is not subject to a Title III demand.”
Trump is concerned about Republicans’ ability to retain control of the Senate and House of Representatives both because of his low approval ratings and because incumbents usually lose seats during their second term midterm contests (as well as their first term midterms).
“Generally speaking, a president who is this unpopular should see his party lose a lot of ground in Congress,” Sabato’s Crystal Ball editor Kondik told AlterNet. “That said, Joe Biden also had poor approval in 2022, but Republicans didn’t do all that well—they flipped the House but not the Senate. However, the Republican lead in the generic ballot was not as large as the Democratic lead is now.”
This was not Trump’s only legal setback on Tuesday. There are also early signs that he is going to lose in his attempt to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from covering him at the White House.
“A federal appeals court ruling Tuesday on demonstrators’ access to the steps of the Capitol could bode poorly for President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban three media organizations from the White House,” Politico’s Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein reported. “The majority opinion, written by Trump appointee Neomi Rao, concluded that the East Steps of the Capitol are a ‘nonpublic forum’ — just like most areas of the White House grounds, including the press facilities.”
Politico continued, “While the government may impose restrictions on access to those nonpublic areas, the limits must be ‘viewpoint neutral,’ apply ‘objective, workable standards’ and not permit officials to exercise ‘unbridled discretion over a forum’s use,’ the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel concluded.”