Today, Democracy Docket published an exclusive Op-Ed written by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat-New York) entitled "Trump is doing everything he can to subvert the midterms. But democracy will prevail."

Here's the full text of Schumer's Op-Ed:

Staring defeat in the face, Donald Trump will do everything he can to subvert the election. Americans must be made aware of his evil intent and we all must be prepared to do everything we can to stop him.

The facts are plain: Fuel and grocery prices are climbing. The chaotic war in Iran has no end in sight. But with days left before the midterms, President Trump has settled on a strategy that addresses neither: If he can't win Americans' support, he'll try to cancel their vote.

His campaign of subversion is well underway. Realizing he would lose the election, this July, Trump claimed that his administration had found hundreds of thousands of noncitizens registered to vote in four states. He offered no proof, and the claim collapsed under the slightest scrutiny. In Nevada, the list of supposedly illegal voters went from nearly 16,000 to zero. You read that right: zero.

This was after Trump's failed attempt to pass the SAVE Act in the United States Senate. This noxious bill would have allowed Trump's Department of Homeland Security to indiscriminately and unlawfully purge voters from the voting rolls in all 50 states. Millions of American citizens were in jeopardy of being denied their right to vote without notice. The SAVE Act was never about election integrity – it was about rigging the game; Trump thought it was his ace in the hole to steal the election. As Trump proudly admitted at the time, "If we pass the SAVE America Act, we won't lose an election for a hundred years." But Senate Democrats waged a strong and persistent campaign against the bill, rallied the American people, blocked the legislation in the Senate, and his terrible bill died.

But Trump is undeterred. He and his allies have been fomenting doubt for months, claiming that if Republicans don't win in the midterms, the elections were rigged.

Trump's concern with voter fraud is a ruse – an obvious attempt to avoid accountability from American voters across the country. If the Trump Administration wanted to investigate voter fraud, it would look into reports of GOP organizers using their homes as a base for out of town voters. It hasn't. If Trump was truly worried about election integrity, he would have excoriated the former first vice chairman of the Georgia Republican Party who was found to have voted illegally nine times. He didn't.

Trump's disastrous policies have turned the national mood against him and he knows it. His approval rating hovers in the low 30s. His unpopularity has reduced him to holding rallies in high school gyms and community centers in deep red states to try to protect Republican incumbents. He even had to hold a tele-rally to help a Senate candidate in Louisiana. You read that right: Louisiana.

With policies so unpopular and the midterm outlook looking bleak for his Republican Party, what's a wannabe autocrat to do? The sinister answer: wield the power of the federal government to subvert the election entirely.

Trump's half-cocked but dangerous strategy is simple: If he can't win voters, he will rob them of the right to vote.

This is a full-frontal assault. Two illegal voter suppression executive orders, a vendetta against mail-in-voting, manufactured lists of illegally registered voters compiled with what a Trump Administration whistleblower called "supplemental magic" in violation of state and federal laws, and more. In just the past week, Trump has threatened local election administrators in California and Washington, issued over 100 subpoenas seeking election records to 13 states, and directed the Justice Department to file a baseless lawsuit to preemptively block Alaska from certifying the election – if Trump is dissatisfied with the result.

Let's be clear: None of this was ever about the integrity of American elections. Voter fraud is illegal and should be prosecuted – just like it has been for the entire history of our country. But Trump doesn't care about the law and the integrity of our election. His only goal is to block Americans from using the ballot box to hold him accountable for his failed administration by any means necessary.

The next few days, we can expect to see this desperate campaign to kick into overdrive. We know he is going to continue lashing out by relying on the authoritarian tools at his disposal. We will be ready for everything he can throw at us because we know what's coming.

We expect him to try to intimidate America's dedicated election officials by threatening them with prosecution, simply for having the temerity to do their jobs.
We expect him to send federal agents to polling places, or near polling places, to deter voters and make them wait in longer lines.
We expect him to try to interfere with the vote counting and certification process around the country, even by illegally seizing polling machines and ballots.
We must be vigilant. We must confront and counter every move he makes. We expect Trump to try all these things, but he will not succeed.

We will fight him on all fronts.

Trump's nonsensical legal arguments will continue to be rejected by the courts. His pitiful attempts to intimidate election officials and poll workers will fail, stymied by fair-minded election officials from across the political spectrum. His authoritarian show of force at polling places and harassment of Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native, and Muslim Americans will be stymied by the will of millions, hell-bent on exercising their right to have their voices heard.

Americans will vote. And their votes will be counted.

Early voting data shows that voters are heading to the polls by the millions. That is the ultimate power of democracy. No matter how desperate Trump and the Republicans become, no matter what tactics they try, they will not succeed. Democracy will prevail.