US President Donald Trump has questioned the credibility of last week’s midterm election results, days after saying he was willing to accept the outcome in which Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday, Trump questioned whether the election was conducted fairly and expressed doubts about the accuracy of pre-election polls.
“Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest. How could the Polls be so wrong?” he wrote.
His comments appeared to contradict his earlier position on election night, when he told the New York Times that he was “absolutely willing” to accept the results.
Democrats won control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the elections, although some contests, including Senate races in Alaska and Mississippi, remain undecided.
State and local election officials across the country have reported that voting was largely smooth, with no widespread problems identified.
Trump’s post also made vague references to polling, vote-counting “dumps” and voting machines but did not provide specific evidence of fraud or explain what errors he believed had occurred.
Charles Stewart III, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the reporting of election results followed the usual pattern across the country.
He explained that some states, including Florida and Georgia, report results more quickly because they have already counted early and mail-in ballots.
Trump has repeatedly questioned the integrity of elections he has lost, although he was not a candidate in the midterm elections.
After his party’s defeat was confirmed, he told CBS News that Republicans would have won easily if his name had been on the ballot.
Pre-election surveys conducted by several polling organisations and news outlets had indicated that Republicans were at risk of losing seats in both chambers of Congress.
According to the current results, Democrats have secured 54 Senate seats and 254 House seats, giving them comfortable majorities in both chambers, although counting is still ongoing in some states.
Ruth Greenwood, director of the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, said delays in announcing results did not necessarily indicate wrongdoing.
She explained that some states take longer to complete their counts because of differences in their election laws and procedures.
Greenwood urged the public to trust local election officials to complete the counting process and announce the results.
On election night, Trump had indicated that he was prepared to work with Democrats, telling the New York Times: “We’ll, you know, look forward to working with [Democrats].”
He added that both sides would probably find a way to work together.
The president has also acknowledged that the war in Iran contributed to the Republican defeat. Speaking to Fox News, he said voters supported his actions in Iran but were unwilling to deal with the immediate economic consequences, particularly rising petrol prices.
Vice-President JD Vance also blamed the conflict, which began in February and has disrupted global oil and gas supplies, contributing to higher energy costs.
Before the election, Trump and his allies repeatedly raised concerns about alleged widespread voter fraud, despite evidence showing that such cases are rare.
They also spent months challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to former President Joe Biden.
His lawyers and allies pursued several legal challenges, but courts repeatedly rejected their claims.
The Justice Department under Trump’s administration has also made unusual efforts to increase federal involvement in election matters, despite the Constitution primarily giving states responsibility for administering elections.
Days before the midterm elections, the department filed lawsuits challenging aspects of vote counting and certification in states including California and Alaska. Judges rejected its arguments in nearly all the cases.
Election law experts, state officials and local election offices told the BBC they had spent months preparing for possible challenges to the credibility of the results by the White House and election sceptics.
Despite the concerns, senior state and local election officials have described the 2026 midterm voting process as largely smooth.
However, extreme weather forced some polling locations to close, while a number of administrative and technical problems caused delays in some local areas.
