Media Must Cover Trump’s Election Meddling Forcefully

Election Day is tomorrow, and Trump’s Justice Department has spent weeks intervening directly in a midterm, something it avoided for decades. It sued to block Alaska’s Senate certification if Republican Dan Sullivan loses, a suit Trump says he ordered. It sent letters to election officials in 57 of California’s 58 counties threatening investigations, until a federal judge barred the threats as likely “interfering with the lawful administration” of the midterms.

Too much coverage treats each move as an isolated legal skirmish and moves on once a court rejects it. A judge dismissed the Alaska suit Sunday, but the pattern is the story. The department has slashed its Public Integrity Section, and Attorney General Todd Blanche won’t rule out challenging certification. Earlier, it seized Fulton County’s 2020 ballots and tried to restrict mail voting until the Supreme Court stopped it.

More than 34 million Americans have already voted. We call on the media to cover this as a coordinated effort to undermine a free election, and to keep covering it after polls close, when counting and certification become the next front. The public deserves relentless reporting until every vote is counted and every result is certified.