What Trump Will Do When the Returns Come In Ugly

What Trump Will Do When the Returns Come In Ugly

It won’t be a surprise. It’ll be a rerun.

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #1,066: Monday, October 26th, 2026.

Let me save you a week of cable news.

On the night of November 3rd, if the numbers come in the way most people who count these things expect them to, you’re going to watch a lot of very smart people act shocked at what the President does next.

Don’t be one of them.

I’m not going to tell you what’s in his head. Nobody can. What I’m going to tell you is what he’s done before, what he’s said he’ll do, and what forty years of behavioral science says a man does when he’s cornered and has already written his excuse.

That’s three sources. Past conduct. Stated intent. Human nature.

When all three point the same direction, you don’t need a crystal ball. You need a calendar.

Here’s the first thing you need to understand.

The loss narrative is already built. It’s not sitting in a drawer waiting for bad news. It’s been running every day.

A count published this month found that he has cast doubt on elections on more than 70 percent of the days of his second term. Not the months. The days.

He’s told audiences that Democrats will cheat in the midterms unless Congress passes the SAVE America Act. In June, he used the slow mail-ballot count in California to question a primary that nobody else had questioned.

A primary. In an off-year. That his party wasn’t even competitive in.

Behavioral psychology has a term for what you’re looking at. It’s called a pre-commitment. You make the decision before the moment arrives so the moment can’t change it.

Smokers throw out the pack. Dieters empty the fridge. And a man who cannot tolerate losing announces the fix before the game starts…so that whatever happens…he has never lost.

Which brings me to the first prediction, and it’s the one I’d bet the house on. (And you likely would, too.)

Prediction One: The election will be declared fraudulent before it’s over.

Not after. Before.

Watch the timing. Early returns in most states skew Republican because in-person votes count first. Mail ballots count later and skew Democratic. He knows this. He used it in 2020. He’s spent the year telling you mail ballots are fraudulent by nature.

So…the script writes itself. Early lead. Victory claim. Late ballots flip a few races. And every one of those flips becomes “proof.”

This isn’t a theory. It’s the pattern from 2020…with the serial numbers filed off. The only thing a bigger loss changes is the volume.

Prediction Two: He will blame Republicans. Loudly. Within 48 hours.

I know. You’d think a man would look in the mirror.

He won’t. And here’s why I’m confident: he already rehearsed this one.

After the off-year losses in 2025, his explanation wasn’t that voters were unhappy. It was that Republican candidates had failed to talk about his accomplishments. Winning, he said…is easy when you talk about the facts.

That’s the tell. When a person explains failure as other people’s failure to promote him, you’re not looking at a one-off. You’re looking at a fixed interpretive frame.

It’s called an external attribution, and it’s one of the most stable traits you can measure in a person. It doesn’t bend under pressure. It hardens.

So…expect this. Losing candidates “weren’t MAGA enough.” Governors and senators who kept their distance get named…mocked…and threatened with primaries. The result gets reframed as a loyalty test the party failed…not a referendum he lost.

The anger will be real. It will be aimed at his own side first. And…it will be the most visible emotional reaction you see from him in the first two days.

Prediction Three: He will go after the machinery.

This is the one that matters, and it’s the one I’m least certain about. Not because of him. Because of everyone else.

Here’s what the record shows. Last year he put an election-security czar in charge of re-investigating his 2020 loss. He repeated his threats…to prosecute the officials who ran that election. Days later…FBI agents seized 2020 ballots and records from Fulton County, Georgia.

That’s not rhetoric. That’s a muscle being flexed in advance.

He’s posted that Republicans fielded an “election integrity army” in every state in 2024 and that the 2026 version will be bigger.

Stephen Richer, who ran elections in Arizona’s largest county and got run out of his own party for doing it honestly…said this year that the real danger isn’t Election Day. It’s the weeks after. Sow enough doubt…and Congress starts asking whether it has to seat the people who won.

So here’s what I’d watch for. Justice Department action aimed at specific counties…the kind that start with “concerns” and end with subpoenas.

Pressure on the outgoing House…which is still Republican until January, over certification of the new one. Truth Social posts about not letting “them” get away with it…pointed at particular states.

Will it work? That depends on how many people say no. In 2020, courts said no. Secretaries of state said no. A Vice President said no. The machinery held because the people inside it held.

Which is my whole point, and the reason I’m writing this.

The reaction is the easy part.

I just told you what he’ll do, and I did it without a leak, a source, or a seat in the room.

That’s because none of it is a surprise. A man who has told you a hundred times what he thinks of elections…isn’t going to discover a new opinion on election night.

The hard part isn’t him. It’s the dozens of judges, clerks, county boards, state legislators, and Republican members of Congress who will each get a phone call in November asking them to bend just a little. Not break. Bend.

Here’s the thing about pressure. It flows to wherever the resistance is weakest. Prediction One needs nobody’s cooperation. Prediction Two needs only a microphone. Prediction Three needs lawyers, courts, and votes.

He’ll push on all three. Only the third one can actually change who governs.

So…if you take one thing from this, take this. Stop watching him. You already know the script. Start watching the people who have to say no.

Learn your county election board’s name. Know who certifies in your state and when. Know your member of Congress’s position on seating the winners, in writing, before the question gets asked. The time to find out whether a person will hold is before the phone rings, not after.

Because here’s what thirty-plus years of watching human behavior will tell you about moments like this. The man under pressure rarely surprises you. The people around him do…in both directions.

Some of them fold. You expected that.

And…some of them, people you never heard of…in offices you never thought about… turn out to be made of something harder than anyone guessed.

That’s where this gets decided. Not in the White House. In a county building you could drive to this afternoon.

Go find out who’s in it.

#HoldFast

Back soon

- Jack

Jack Hopkins

P.S. They didn’t ask a judge to throw out 20,000 ballots. They asked a judge to hold them. Holding is the move you make when you don’t want a ruling; you want a delay past Tuesday. Watch for the word. Then watch who copies it.

Sources

DOJ v. California — Ninth Circuit arguments, Sunday Oct. 25 (Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/10/25/midterm-elections-immigration-voter-fraud-trump/c4f4db38-d0d7-11f1-9931-2a41b76fc976_story.html

DOJ appeals before the district judge rules; TRO argument set for Oct. 27 (JURIST)
https://www.jurist.org/news/2026/10/doj-appeals-to-ninth-circuit-as-california-says-judge-has-not-ruled-on-request-to-segregate-20000-mail-ballots/

Ninth Circuit orders California to respond by Saturday noon (Fox News)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/california-must-respond-dojs-emergency-request-over-ballots-mailed-alleged-noncitizens-court-rules

Judges question reliability of DOJ’s purchased voter list (CNN live coverage, Oct. 25)
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/10/25/politics/live-news/midterm-election-congress

Russian diesel tanker PVT Azura signaling Norfolk for Nov. 2 (gCaptain)
https://gcaptain.com/rare-russian-diesel-shipment-expected-to-arrive-in-norfolk-on-november-2/

Lawmakers warn ports and banks; no confirmed U.S. buyer (gCaptain)
https://gcaptain.com/lawmakers-warn-u-s-ports-and-banks-over-trump-putin-russian-diesel-deal/

Republicans who criticized the Graham Act waiver (Newsweek)
https://www.newsweek.com/list-republicans-breaking-trump-russia-sanctions-waiver-12590802

Trump’s Oct. 16 waiver order and GOP reaction (The Hill)
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6155725-trump-waives-russia-sanctions/