Opinion | No, Trump Can’t Cancel the Midterms

Trump talks about this sometimes. Trump is like: Things are going so well, maybe we don’t have to have midterms. And there’s this chatter, chit- chatter on the internet about the president canceling the elections. And I just — I feel like since we’re having this conversation about the midterms, I feel obligated to say that that’s not a thing. And I know the response is going to be: Look, he does everything else he wants. And I think that actually an intelligent response to that is like, actually, there’s a lot of things which he’s stopped or just blocked, but that in a very practical sense, states run elections, states run federal elections, not the president. The president has no role in federal elections. The president has no role certifying federal elections. The president has no role seating members of Congress. When it comes to the conduct of federal elections and the results, at least for legislative elections, the president is just a guy. He’s just a guy watching it on CNN like the rest of us.