RIGGED: Both Parties Deploy Underhanded Tricks to Sabotage Key Midterm Races

Liberty Check

• Republican and Democrat operatives are using deceptive tactics—including fake candidates, dark money schemes, and ballot manipulation—to rig 2026 midterm outcomes
• Coordinated withdrawal schemes and last-minute filing deadline maneuvers are clearing the field for establishment-approved candidates while blocking grassroots challengers
• Fabricated polling data and misleadingly named PACs are being weaponized to confuse voters and undermine fair elections

As the 2026 midterms heat up, both major parties are deploying increasingly cynical schemes to manipulate outcomes—including routing millions through deceptively named political committees, exploiting election deadlines, and even running fake candidates to confuse voters.

While Republicans and Democrats point fingers at each other, both sides are engaging in tactics that many Americans view as nothing short of electoral sabotage. The maneuvers threaten to undermine what little trust remains in our democratic process.

In Alaska’s Senate race—currently rated a toss-up by Fox News Power Rankings—Republicans are crying foul over what they say is a deliberate Democrat ploy to confuse voters. Incumbent GOP Sen. Dan S. Sullivan faces a challenge from teacher Dan J. Sullivan, whom Republicans accuse of running solely to siphon votes away from the sitting senator.

Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system allows the top four vote-getters to advance to the general election. If enough voters confuse the two Dan Sullivans, it could hand Democratic nominee Mary Peltola a critical advantage.

Republicans point to Dan J. Sullivan’s work with a Democratic-aligned consultant as smoking-gun evidence of coordination. The challenger maintains he’s a legitimate Republican with genuine concerns about the incumbent’s record.

The situation got even more absurd when a third Dan Sullivan—the former mayor of Anchorage—entered the fray to endorse Dan S. Sullivan. Meanwhile, the Justice Department and Alaska election officials are reportedly investigating whether Dan J. Sullivan deliberately sought to mislead voters, following a failed Republican legal effort to remove him from the ballot.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee allegedly worked behind the scenes to recruit Rep. Jasmine Crockett into Texas’ Democratic Senate primary, believing she’d be easier to defeat in a general election than Texas State Rep. James Talarico.

One source familiar with the process called it an “AstroTurf recruitment process” when speaking with NOTUS in 2025. The NRSC reportedly released polling showing Crockett leading the Democratic field—polls that hadn’t previously included her name.

As subsequent polls showed Crockett gaining traction, she cited the strong numbers as motivation for entering the race. Sources claim the NRSC worked to spread these polls in progressive digital spaces to drum up support.

Once Crockett entered, conservative political committees ran ads ostensibly attacking her liberal record—but critics argue this was merely a backhanded way to publicize positions popular with the Democratic base. Multiple Republicans also publicly expressed concern about her candidacy, statements that could encourage liberal voters to rally behind her.

Even after Crockett’s defeat, tensions from the bruising primary have lingered, with some Black elected officials pressing Talarico to address concerns among voters who overwhelmingly backed Crockett.

A network of Democratic donors, dark-money groups, and left-leaning super PACs has poured over $10 million into backing five independents in Republican-leaning areas—a strategy critics view as a backdoor attempt to sneak liberals into Congress without the Democratic Party brand.

In Nebraska, Idaho, and South Dakota Senate races, Democratic nominees withdrew after independents entered, fueling Republican accusations that the party is using “independent” candidates as Trojan horses. If elected, skeptics say these candidates will vote lockstep with Democrats despite their independence claims.

“Dan has taken small-dollar donations from Republicans, Independents, and Democrats from all 93 of Nebraska’s counties who are done being taken advantage of by D.C. lobbyists, corporate PACs, and party bosses,” a campaign spokesperson for Dan Osborn, the independent running in Nebraska, told Fox News Digital.

“Ricketts has been running from his record all campaign and has resorted to lying about Dan because he’s scared.”

Republicans aren’t innocent either. GOP operatives have admitted to using deceptively named super PACs to boost far-left Democratic candidates in primaries—elevating weaker opponents they believe will be easier to defeat in November.

Conservative Americans PAC, funded by the right-leaning dark money group American Prosperity Alliance, funneled millions into three ostensibly left-leaning committees: Lead Left PAC, Real Change PAC, and California Blue PAC. These seemingly liberal committees spent large sums backing candidates widely believed to be weaker general election contenders.

The scheme worked because the “liberal” PACs were formed late enough that disclosures revealing their right-wing funding didn’t need to be released until after primaries ended. Voters had no way of knowing who was really paying for the ads they were seeing.

“Republicans are leveling the playing field after over a decade of Democrats meddling in our primaries, and with the Democrat Party in the midst of a civil war, Republicans would be stupid not to take advantage while pushing their candidates farther left,” a spokeswoman for Conservative Americans PAC said.

Some political polls that circulated widely this cycle were later revealed to be completely fabricated. Median Strategies, an organization recently revealed to have been run by a 21-year-old, released polls on the Los Angeles mayoral election and Wisconsin and Nevada gubernatorial races that drew coverage from news outlets—and were even touted by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

After journalists raised questions, Median Strategies folded and admitted its polls were fake to the Los Angeles Times.

“Median Strategies was created as a short term social experiment to examine how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification,” the company said in an email.

The fake polling outfit pushed numbers claiming Bass was leading her DSA-aligned rival by a significant margin and that Wisconsin state lawmaker Francesca Hong, who ultimately lost her primary, had a commanding lead.

Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, suspended his re-election campaign just minutes before the filing deadline for candidates. His preferred successor, Kurt Alme, filed paperwork to run for Senate just minutes before Daines withdrew—effectively clearing the field of high-profile Republican challengers.

When a sitting member retires, top-tier candidates typically jump in to take advantage of no incumbent in the race. By holding off until the last moment and seemingly coordinating with Alme, Daines blocked potential rivals from entering.

“They obviously did this to keep certain people out of these races,” former Democratic Montana Sen. Jon Tester said of the maneuver.

“It wasn’t an accident.”

Daines wasn’t alone in leveraging filing deadlines. Rep. Chuy Garcia, a Chicago-area Democrat, decided not to seek reelection while his congressional chief of staff had already gathered the signatures necessary to appear on the Democratic primary ballot—another maneuver that cleared the way for a lawmaker’s chosen successor.

Garcia cited health problems when explaining his sudden retirement, though he called criticisms over how the situation looked “fair.”

Americans deserve better.