Washington, D.C. | U.S.A. - Jan 6th, 2021: Trump Initiated Riots in at the Capitol (Photo credit: Johnny Silvercloud / Shutterstock)
If President Donald Trump’s repeated accusations of Democratic election fraud and his contemplation of invoking a national security emergency have a familiar ring, it’s because the same rhetoric set the stage for the effort to overturn the 2020 election.
But as the 2026 midterms approach, with Democrats favored to retake control of the House, one key component in Trump’s election subversion machine appears to be missing: The network of “Stop the Steal” influencers, extremist groups and far-right media outlets that sprang into action to spread conspiracy theories and mobilize supporters following the presidential election six years ago.
“We must not accept this election,” Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist known for baselessly claiming that the Sandy Hook shooting was a false flag, told his audience two weeks after the 2020 election. “I don’t even care if Trump concedes. I’m not conceding crap. This means revolution. This means war. This is a Chinese communist New World Order takeover and martial law COVID lockdown.”
Brandon Straka, a former hair stylist turned social media influencer whose #WalkAway Campaign encouraged Democrats to leave their party, insisted on Twitter that Trump’s supporters should not “allow a transition” to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden. The 74.2 million people who voted for Trump in 2020, he said, “know that something is horribly wrong and feel victimized by the politicians and the media orchestrating this scam.”
“Make peace right now w[ith] the fact that we are in a civil war,” Straka wrote in another tweet in late 2020.
During an impromptu rally with members of the far-right street gang the Proud Boys and Trump confidante Roger Stone in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 11, 2020, Owen Shroyer, an anchor on Jones’ InfoWars show, denounced the Supreme Court for refusing to hear a lawsuit challenging the election.
“This was never their revolution,” Shroyer said, after taking a swig from a beer and addressing Proud Boys itching to brawl with left-wing counterprotesters. “This is our revolution!”
Now, a new crop of influencers has emerged to amplify Trump’s baseless election-fraud claims, but major figures in the original “Stop the Steal” coalition are signaling disillusionment with the president and predicting that Republicans are poised to lose the midterms.
During his show on Aug. 22, Jones criticized Trump for telling his supporters to get over the crimes of the late accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and for the unpopular war he started with Iran.
“And now I think we’re going to lose the midterms,” Jones said.
Shroyer made a similar point during a guest appearance on Straka’s show on Aug. 19, arguing that if the Republicans lose control of the House, it will be due to the unpopularity of Trump’s policies.
“I think if the Democrats win, it’s because of Trump,” Shroyer said. “I think if the Trump administration, the Republicans can’t win, then that’s on them."
If Republicans are really serious when they say Democratic control of the House is a dire threat, Shroyer added, then they should “stop new wars.”
Speaking with Joe Kent, Trump’s former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, last month, Straka said he believes the success of some Trump-backed candidates in the Republican primaries is giving his supporters false hope.
“I think the real tale is going to be told in November,” Straka said. “And the thing I’m questioning more than anything is, are those voters under 50, under 40, under 30 going to turn out? Or the independents. Or the broader coalition. Are they going to show up for MAGA? Because I think a lot of people are feeling betrayed.”
Emily Rainey, a former Army intelligence officer who organized a busload of Trump supporters from Moore County, in North Carolina, to attend Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 rally at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., told Raw Story she no longer supports Trump, although she still believes the 2020 election was stolen.
“I brought 100 people to Washington on January 6th,” she said. “Everyone was Christian and Trump-loving. I assume many of them, like me, are no longer fans of Trump. At the same time, we were there to protest for election integrity.”
Rainey broke with Trump, she said, because of his “being actively involved in a genocide” in Gaza through U.S. backing of Israel. But that doesn’t mean that she wants to make common cause with the left: She also said she wants to see Trump “put a complete stop on immigration,” while claiming that immigrants from India and the “Third World” are incompatible with the “Christian principles” that the United States was supposedly “built on.”
“I think that Christians need to admit that we were duped” by Trump, Rainey said.
Ali Alexander, a former political operative who activated the “Stop the Steal” campaign after the 2020 election, has been conspicuously quiet about the 2026 midterms. Alexander reportedly told an associate he was “bowing out of public life” in 2023 after admitting to sending sexually explicit texts to younger men.
Unlike many of his fellow alumni from the election denier Class of 2020, Alexander doesn’t post on X because his account has been suspended. Recent posts on his Telegram channel chronicle his travels through Latin America, and he has only glancingly commented on the midterm elections.
Some of the figures recruited by Alexander to organize rallies to protest the 2020 election have moved into Trump’s orbit since the 2024 election and remain involved in Trump’s efforts to intervene in the 2026 midterms.
Political consultant Alex Bruesewitz was named by Alexander in a tweet published the day after the 2020 election to organize rallies in Wisconsin. Bruesewitz repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment when questioned by the now-defunct House Select January 6th Committee, including whether he went to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Bruesewitz served as social media advisor to the 2024 Trump campaign and continues to work for a political action committee affiliated with the president.
Bruesewitz has reliably echoed Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud on his X account in recent months, by claiming the Los Angeles mayoral primary was “rigged” against Republican candidate Spencer Pratt, and accusing the Democratic Party of “rigging primaries.”
Bruesewitz and Scott Presler — a political organizer tasked by Alexander with backstopping “Stop the Steal” rallies in Pennsylvania in 2020 — have been pumping the SAVE Act on their X accounts. Trump has pressured Republican lawmakers to pass the legislation, which Democrats and voting rights groups warn would disenfranchise millions of voters.
Earlier this month, Trump told a host on the right-wing Real America’s Voice network that he wouldn’t rule out declaring a national emergency to require voter ID and proof of citizenship, along with a limit on mail-in voting, if he can’t get Congress to pass the SAVE Act.
Another figure recruited by Alexander for the 2020 “Stop the Steal” campaign was Ed Martin, then president of the conservative group Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagles. Alexander tagged Martin as a “national” organizer for the effort. Martin worked with Alexander to organize a “Jericho March” rally in Washington, DC, which is considered a warm-up for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a fellow organizer who spoke to the Jan. 6 Committee. On Jan. 6, Martin reportedly marched to the Capitol, although he was not charged with any crime.
Following Trump’s 2025 inauguration, the president appointed Martin as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, where he presided over the dismissal of about 1,500 cases following Trump’s pardon of those involved in the attack on the Capitol. After Senate Republicans balked at confirming him to the position, Martin served as the pardons attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice and headed the department’s Weaponization Working Group, which sought to uncover Biden-era abuses.
Martin has used his X account to undermine confidence in elections by sharing a post about irregularities in the Wisconsin primary and by amplifying a post by another election denier that suggested establishment Democrats in Michigan unsuccessfully attempted to rig the vote against Abdul El-Sayel, the party’s nominee for U.S. Senate.
Last week, Trump announced on Truth Social that Martin is leaving the Department of Justice “to go outside to fight Legal Battles for the upcoming Midterm Election, and the Presidential Election of 2028.”
Outside of Martin, Presler and Bruesewitz, the original “Stop the Steal” team assembled by Alexander is far from a united front.
Mike Cernovich, an influencer who was tagged in Alexander’s 2020 post-election tweet, made the obvious observation in an Aug. 11 X post that “Democrats currently have the edge.”
Almost two weeks later, his outlook had taken a dark turn.
“One bad sign for the midterms is that the focus is on in-fighting, all done in preparation for losing the midterms and then blaming one another,” he wrote on Sunday. “Everyone has given up and is more interested in pointing fingers at who is responsible for the loss.”