The Many Ways Russ Vought Could Rig the Midterms

On October 6, Trump told a crowd in Maryland that his budget director has “big surprises coming up in another few weeks.” He was reading the names of officials at the groundbreaking of Anduril’s submarine shipyard at Sparrows Point when he reached Russ Vought. “Right Russ? He’s gonna be one of the very important people in the history of our country, in my opinion.”

That morning he had posted on Truth Social: “Watch for the ‘Midterm Surprise!’” Nobody outside the White House knows what either remark means.

Vought is not a random name to attach to the word “surprise” four weeks before an election. In speeches published by ProPublica, he described building a “shadow” legal office to pre-clear the president’s use of the Insurrection Act, and said he wanted federal workers “traumatically affected.” Since taking office he has cancelled money Congress appropriated, twice, in a way the government’s auditor calls illegal, moved $352 million between accounts without explanation, and made 8,000 senior civil servants fireable at will.

Vought does not count votes, but everything that could tilt an election runs on money he controls. Here is the worst he could do with it.

Step one: he buys the messages.

Vought has already paid for Trump’s ads with public money once. In September, OMB added $20 million to the Department of Homeland Security’s budget; days later DHS gave a $20 million “national media campaign” contract to an ad agency. The ads show Trump attacking “communism” and the “deep state,” carry the tag “funded by the U.S. government,” and are paid from a Customs and Border Protection line for “commemorating efforts and events related to border security” (Pioneer Public Affairs; The Washington Sun).

Doing it again, bigger, is a matter of which accounts he opens. Federal agencies spend close to $1 billion a year on advertising, by GAO’s count, and OMB decides what can be tapped. In the worst case the same pipe pays for ads about noncitizen voters, “communists” on the ballot and the $5,000 “dividend” Trump has promised if Republicans hold Congress, running in the eight states that decide the Senate. The Hatch Act forbids this. It also forbade the first $20 million, and nothing has happened.

Step two: he pays for the fraud story.

The machine that produces noncitizen-voting numbers is built, and it runs on money OMB releases. Homeland Security Investigations has ingested roughly 99 million voter records, 48 million of them obtained by Heather Honey, the 2020 election denier now advising the DHS secretary (CNN). In July DHS announced 250,000 noncitizen registrants in four states. Nevada’s share, 16,000, became 185 on review, then zero (TIME).

In the worst case, Vought funds a surge of record-matching so a new number lands in late October. It does not need to survive review. Nevada’s did not. It needs to be the story for the last two weeks.

Step three: he holds back the money that counts the votes.

Vought can slow the count in Maricopa, Fulton, Clark and Philadelphia by holding federal money rather than cutting it. The administration has already cut the election-security apparatus: in early 2025 DHS ended the Center for Internet Security’s election work, CISA cut $10 million a year for the information-sharing centers, and more than a dozen election-security staff went on leave (NBC News). This year DHS tried to withhold 20 percent of counterterrorism grants from counties that would not hand-audit ballots; a judge struck that down September 28.

OMB has a tool that needs no condition and no court: it can simply not release the money. It attaches footnotes requiring spend plans it then does not approve. That is how the National Science Foundation came to carry $1.4 billion unspent past the end of the year (New York Times), and why GAO found two more illegal impoundments last week (Bloomberg Law).

In the worst case the same footnotes land on election-security and election-mail accounts, and the slow count becomes next week’s evidence of fraud. A rescission message to Congress, which Vought can send any day, freezes whatever it names for 45 days: through Election Day, through the canvass, into certification.

Step four: he pays for agents at the polls.

Trump has twice declined to rule out an election emergency, and the agencies that would carry one out are ready. “Stranger things have happened,” he said on August 11; “I don’t rule anything out or in,” he told TIME. The Justice Department plans about 1,000 monitors. Asked whether FBI agents would stay away from the polls, the FBI director said, “I don’t know that we can’t legally do it.” The Joint Chiefs say the military has no plans (NPR).

Every plan needs money, and the money runs through Vought. Federalizing a Guard unit, moving ICE agents to polling-place “investigations,” standing up DOJ’s monitors: each is paid through an OMB apportionment. The $352 million he moved in June into “White House Security Measures,” tied by the Washington Post to the ballroom, shows what moves on a signature. In the worst case the money is apportioned the week before the vote, the legal memo is already written, and the first anyone hears of it is agents at a county election office.

Step five: he uses the December shutdown to pressure the count.

The government is funded through December 11, in the middle of the count. States certify their results in late November and December, and the new Congress is seated on January 3. As budget director, Vought controls which states get federal money while that happens.

In that window Vought holds three levers at once. He can withhold money from states that certify results the president rejects; the administration already tried that on sanctuary jurisdictions until a judge enjoined it. He can fire the civil servants who refuse to go along; Executive Order 14410 made 8,000 of them at-will on June 3. And he can put the shutdown back on the table; the September settlement that ended last fall’s shutdown firings requires only 30 days’ notice to reverse, and 30 days from the election is December 3.

In the worst case, Congress is asked to fund the government, pay the dividend and seat the new House in the same two weeks the president is contesting results in three states.

Why believe any of this?

Because every step has already happened once, in miniature.

• The $20 million ad buy.
• The 250,000 noncitizens that became zero.
• The $1.4 billion held at NSF.
• The grant conditions, struck down September 28.
• The $352 million transfer.
• The civil service made fireable on June 3.
• The appropriated money cancelled twice, $4.9 billion and then $810 million, the second after Vought told Democrats he had “no plans” to do it again.
• The 43-day shutdown with 4,200 layoff notices.

The only thing that has not happened is all of it at once, pointed at an election.

What can be done about it.

Congress can take the levers away before December 11. The funding bill is the one thing Vought needs from Congress this year. Collins, Murkowski, Rounds and Cornyn have already called the September rescission illegal; the December bill can bar withholding election funds, require every apportionment footnote to be posted the day it is signed, and carry Patty Murray’s bill cutting OMB’s budget $20 million for every propaganda violation GAO finds. One Republican senator can un-block the vote Ron Johnson blocked in September.

GAO can sue. The Impoundment Control Act lets the Comptroller General go to court to force the release of withheld funds. GAO has found four illegal impoundments by this administration and has never filed.

States and counties can get ahead of the money. The FEMA conditions fell because Texas and Tennessee counties sued before the money was due. Attorneys general can seek orders protecting election funds now; Hatch Act complaints about the ad buy go to the Office of Special Counsel today. Counties can fund the count themselves, as Maricopa did for 2024 with $10.1 million of its own budget set aside a year ahead.

Voters can make the count hard to slow. A ballot returned in person does not depend on the Postal Service. A county with enough poll workers does not depend on federal money for lines. Certification deadlines are state law, not OMB’s, and knowing your county’s date is how you know whether it has been missed.