RNC Chairman Announces Election Integrity Surge Across the US Ahead of 2026 Midterms

Under former co-chairs Lara Trump and Michael Whatley, the Republican National Committee (RNC) did yeoman's work in 2024 to build an election integrity operation which combatted election interference, ensured the polling places were not compromised, and that any irregularities and attempts to erode or block the people's vote were immediately challenged and addressed.

Ahead of the 2026 midterms, RNC Chair Joe Gruters has plans to build even further on this with a multi-million dollar election integrity initiative across the U.S.

🚨 EXCLUSIVE @FoxNews: RNC launches multimillion-dollar election integrity push in 17 states ahead of midterms @ChairmanGruters: “The RNC is all-in, year-round, to safeguard election integrity and ensure only legal votes count.”

Read the full story below ⬇️⬇️⬇️ pic.twitter.com/znelkLSk1w
— RNC Election Integrity (@RNCVoteProtect) May 12, 2026

Fresh off declaring "victory" over Virginia’s roughly $65 million redistricting ballot measure — which Republicans criticized as a "dark money"-backed gerrymander — the Republican National Committee is looking to capitalize on that momentum.
Describing the RNC as "disciplined and ruthless," Chairman Joe Gruters revealed that the committee launched a multimillion-dollar election integrity push ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The effort involves hiring directors in 17 states to recruit poll workers, poll watchers and election observers, while coordinating legal and Election Day oversight across key battlegrounds, Fox News Digital has learned.

Democrats are currently underfunded and swimming in debt, especially after the $83 million outlay on the Virginia ballot initiative, which the VA Supreme Court recently deemed unconstitutional. After the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais decided that racial gerrymandering of elections was unconstitutional, Democrats are losing again with the redistricting occurring in select Southern states.

With nothing to lose, this is a clear signal that the Democrats' plan to go nuclear with the extreme shenanigans they have waged in prior elections. Chairman Gruters is saying, "Not on my watch," as he works to expand upon a winning strategy.

Trump Torches 'Human Garbage' Democrats for Their Desperate Midterm Election Interference Plot

The directors will be the legal "eyes and ears on every vote cast and counted" in every battleground these midterms, according to officials. It is all coming from the top down, echoing President Donald Trump's longstanding argument that the people counting votes are as important as those casting them.

This also dovetails nicely with the work Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, is doing in pressing states to clean up their voter rolls.

As our editor Bob Hoge covered:

The Left will tell you that voter fraud is a barely-there issue, and that our elections are as pure as fresh snow. Why then do they seem hell-bent on preventing any efforts to ensure their integrity and demonizing anyone who points out irregularities?
And there are irregularities, as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo. There’s a whole lot of corpses gumming up the works:
The Trump administration has sued multiple states for failing to turn over voter rolls to the Department of Justice, which is seeking to ensure compliance with the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and other federal laws aimed at protecting the right to vote. Dhillon told Bartiromo that, even in states trying to comply with the laws, issues concerning voting eligibility were still being identified.
“States are not in compliance, even those ones who want to. So, for the ones that we’ve run so far—60 million records that we’ve run—we found at least 350,000 dead people currently on the voter rolls in those jurisdictions, and we’ve referred approximately 25,000 people with no citizenship records to [the Department of] Homeland Security to look at, you know, dig into that further and see the extent to which people voted,” Dhillon told Bartiromo.

This election integrity initiative is extremely proactive, rather than reactive. The best defense is a good offense, and poll observers and poll workers are the front lines of the offensive effort.

The plan revolves around smart data and even artificial intelligence to feed actual, actionable intelligence in the midterm battlegrounds. And the spending and swath of the operation will expand as the conditions on the ground warrant, according to officials.

The RNC plans to utilize election integrity experts who already reside and work in those 17 states, such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina, who know the local laws more intimately than a phalanx of outside attorneys. But attorneys will be on the ground, ready to deploy when necessary. RNC officials also plan to have these operations cover the entire state, rather than select congressional districts.

The icing on the cake: This appears to be an efficient use of the RNC war chest.

Supporters argue that approach reflects fiscal responsibility and a broader strategic shift — something that seemingly left Democrat election lawyer Marc Elias publicly frustrated.

Marc Elias has done more than likely anyone else on the Left to destroy election integrity, with his lawfare, newsletters, and media appearances which foment lies and misinformation. With this latest RNC push, Elias is literally beside himself. The hits just keep on coming with his losses on the Virginia ballot initiative, and the fact that he is now treading water with the red wave of redistricting in Southern states like Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama. Elias is sounding the alarm bells on this RNC initiative.

🚨BREAKING: The Republican National Committee announced Tuesday that it is deploying staff — including “poll watchers” and “election observers” — to at least 17 states in what it calls a nationwide “election integrity” operation ahead of the 2026 midterms. https://t.co/deGnwOWm4l
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) May 12, 2026

But election integrity watchers and experts are elated that the RNC is taking this forward-thinking approach.

As a former Arkansas Election Commissioner who lived through the 2020 mess, I can tell you exactly why the RNC’s election integrity operation is essential. I’ve seen the failures up close. We were literally locked out of our buildings while decisions got made behind closed doors… https://t.co/siGVkpgd2S pic.twitter.com/abQu3giYNb
— Kristi Stahr 🇺🇲 (@KristiMStahr) May 13, 2026

As a former Arkansas Election Commissioner who lived through the 2020 mess, I can tell you exactly why the RNC’s election integrity operation is essential. I’ve seen the failures up close. We were literally locked out of our buildings while decisions got made behind closed doors and voted ballots were left unsecured. COVID was weaponized to erode our system, expand mail voting, remove chain of custody procedures, and limit observers under the guise of 'safety.' It literally led to a lost House seat due to 327 illegally counted votes. That’s exactly why poll watchers exist.
Transparency isn’t suppression. It’s the bedrock of trust. Democrats screaming that basic oversight is a ‘threat’ says it all. Perhaps, Elias should read up on actual election history and maybe read his own organization's write-up on why poll watchers are necessary. Thank you, @RNCResearch, @GOP, @RNC. American voters deserve real safeguards, not more gaslighting by the Left and their foreign dark money donors. #ElectionIntegrity

This is a shot in the arm for voters who have railed about the Republican Party's lack of movement on election integrity. Gruters and the RNC plan to expand this infrastructure even further in preparation for the 2028 election in just over two years.

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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