On October 22, 2026, Attorney General Todd Blanche declined to rule out the Justice Department acting to block states from certifying midterm results. Speaking to reporters in Norfolk, Virginia, where he and FBI Director Kash Patel announced racketeering charges against an 82-year-old Virginia state senator, Blanche was asked whether he could rule out any department action that could delay the counting of ballots. He said there could be some “doomsday” scenario in which it would get involved. NBC News and Fox News both quoted him saying, “Of course, I'm not going to say that,” and, “But am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not.” Democracy Docket transcribed the exchange as beginning, “Yes. Of course there are scenarios that we could all come up with hypothetically, some doomsday scenario, for example.”
Blanche added that the department was “not trying to create chaos” and said, “I'm not trying to not have an election certified. Of course not. What we're trying to do is guarantee to the American people that the only people that are voting are people that are eligible to vote.” Elections are run and certified by state and local officials; the department's role is limited to enforcing federal voting and civil-rights law. The same day, the department filed suit in Alaska asking a federal court to bar certification of the state's Senate race if the Republican incumbent loses.
A day earlier, on a New York Post podcast, Blanche had said, “There was this misperception that there's this separation and independence between the Department of Justice and the White House, and everybody likes to champion that, and they accused me of not suffering from independence. I don't,” The New Republic reported.