When thousands of immigration agents flooded Minnesota earlier this year, a loose network of neighbors sprang into action. They fed each other. They got kids to and from school safely. They tracked the surge that tore through their communities.

After organizing, block by block, to monitor Donald Trump’s extraordinary crackdown on their state, the same neighbors are shifting their focus to a different threat. What if the US president tries to steal an election?

Defending democracy can feel abstract – almost theoretical – until it is required. But a controversial, aggressive and deadly deployment of federal agents felt like a distant prospect on the streets of Minnesota, too, until the president ordered Operation Metro Surge.

With November’s midterm elections approaching, one of the groups that taught Minnesotans to document immigration enforcement has now launched democracy defense trainings, encouraging people to knock on every neighbor’s door to help them vote and, if need be, respond to attacks on the election.

“There is a general, very visceral concern that this administration is planning to ensure that the elections go their way by any means necessary,” said Jess, who trained about 2,500 people on constitutional observation across dozens of lessons during the immigration crackdown.

Jess, a former federal worker who was fired during Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” drive last year, asked to use her first name only for fear of retaliation.

‘Basic stuff’

Dozens of neighbors poured into a stuffy Minnesota church basement on a steamy Tuesday evening in June, finding their seats on tables marked with the geographical area where they live.

They had lived through an assault by the Trump administration on the state which killed two local residents and deported many hundreds more.

They knew to take Trump’s threats seriously. They wanted to learn how they could protect elections.

“We’ve got to make sure that everybody who wants to vote can vote, and everybody’s vote is counted, and those votes and the will of the majority is respected,” said David Brauer, who helped lead the training for Monarca, a project of social justice group Unidos MN.

“Basic stuff, but so crucial right now. But that’s just the first step. Once they’re cast, we know we’ll have to defend them.”

The training is designed to get citizens thinking about what Trump and his allies could do to undermine the voting process and election results. The exercises are theoretical, for now, but based on reality: the president has already sought to undermine the results of California’s elections and said they will be investigated, a sign of more to come in the midterms.

Defending democracy, aside from voting, is often seen as the work of elections officials who count and confirm vote totals, or of nonprofits that file lawsuits over restrictive voting laws. Officials in some states have worked to put laws in place to try to fend off federal overreach. They’re beefing up election security measures and solidifying processes to inform the public of how elections work, anticipating misinformation coming from the White House, like it did in California’s recent primaries.

But in an era of explicit partisan gerrymandering that diminishes voting power for Black people, and of a president who frequently denies the results of election which don’t go his way, defending democracy requires all hands on deck.

Advocates of the block-by-block strategy say it helps keep eyes on election processes. After all, people vote by precinct – where they live.

In 2020, when Trump and his allies sought to overturn the results of the presidential election he lost to Joe Biden, institutional guardrails held: then vice-president Mike Pence did not halt congressional proceedings that confirmed the results, and pressure on state officials to impede their results largely did not work.

Times have changed, though. Trump has filled his government with loyalists, and there’s a growing apprehension that institutional protections may not hold.

In Minnesota, the president’s threats carry weight. Organizing within the community can feel daunting. People are burnt out after months of day-to-day activism. They worry about how the administration could seek to criminalize their activities. (The Department of Justice has charged nearly 40 people over a protest at a church, and another 15 more with broad conspiracy charges for their responses to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, not to mention the hundreds detained and deported from the state.)

Protect Democracy, a nonprofit that advocates against authoritarianism, called the charges against the anti-ICE activists one sign of how the administration could seek to undermine the vote this year. It’s part of a “disrupt” strategy that seeks to deploy federal power against opponents, the group said after the charges against the 15 Minnesotans were filed.

“The Department of Justice is attempting to intimidate critics and punish those who organize to expose the administration’s abuses,” said Jess Marsden, Protect Democracy’s counsel and director of impact programs. “They know how much easier it is to tilt the electoral playing field if people stay home and stay quiet, which is why it’s important to name these abuses now, push back against attacks, and prepare for additional action ahead of November.”

‘What do you do?’

The democracy defense trainings started in Minnesota in late April. Already hundreds have signed up, according to Luis Argueta Jr, communications director of Unidos MN, who said he is not aware of similar ground-level trainings elsewhere in the country. He has been hearing from groups in other states, though, curious about how the sessions are going.

On the night of the training at the suburban church, there were trainings at four other locations in the Twin Cities, Argueta said. Word of mouth has spread among community groups, just like it did around the previous trainings on constitutional observing.

Attacks on democracy have been a “continuous concern”, with people routinely worried about immigration agents at the polls, Argueta said. He’s heard fear from newly naturalized citizens, in particular, over voting, including a concern that if they vote, their loved ones who are not naturalized could be somehow exposed.

While the bulk of immigration agents left the state, some people have remained fearful of harassment or detention if they leave, he said. A plan to convert a private prison into a detention facility amplified worry again, as did additional apprehensions this summer throughout the state.

“So, what do you do?” Argueta said. “Do you sit around and wait and hope that nothing happens, or do you start building something, do you start organizing and making sure that people are able to actually step up and defend?”

In the church basement, Brauer told the crowd that they, like him, might be a “checklist person”, who wants to simply check off five tasks and then win democracy. That’s not how it works, he said. The purpose of the training is not to solve the fundamental problems of democracy, but to get organized and have a plan to respond to whatever the Trump administration throws at it.

The audience shared with each other what made them proud of Minnesota during the federal occupation, and what democracy defense meant to them. It was motivating and empowering to see people move outside their comfort zone, one attender said, even if they were nervous or scared. They would need to embrace discomfort again to defend democracy.

‘As many people as possible’

Threats to elections are already playing out. Louisiana threw out tens of thousands of votes in order to redraw maps to dilute Black voting power. Republican leaders have said they want to see immigration agents or troops at polling places. The federal government has seized ballots in Georgia as part of an endless quest to prove fraud in the 2020 election.

But what defending democracy could look like on the ground isn’t exactly clear yet. It could be get-out-the-vote efforts that ensure your neighbors have a ride to the polls. It could be signing up to work as election judges, or sitting near your polling place to monitor whether immigration agents show up. It could be protesting or lobbying local officials if they face pressure to undermine the vote. It could be anticipating larger threats to the election.

All of these conversations could come up on a neighbor’s doorstep when they’re asked what they’d be willing to do if someone tries to attack the vote.

The group worked through a scenario to figure out what they could do to defend the vote. In the theoretical exercise, the Department of Justice announced in August 2026 that – in order for people’s votes to be counted – voters needed to appear on newly issued federal voter rolls, resulting in confusing messages just before early voting began.

What should we do, a trainer asked the audience, and how would an organized network allow them to respond effectively to the threat?

One person from the audience said there was no way the federal government could move that fast – a natural reaction, the trainer noted, because people want to argue away the threat. Another said they would get loud, and make sure Minnesota’s elected leaders did the same.

Emilia González Avalos, executive director of Unidos MN, acknowledged that these conversations with neighbors can be difficult, especially if there are outward indicators that you might disagree politically, but there is value in “breaking down the dehumanization amongst us as an exercise of power building”.

The strength built block by block will be reflected to defend access to the polls, she said, and ensure results are ratified.

“We don’t need perfect leaders,” she said. “We just need a regular person that can take responsibility of something, anything, whether it’s a smaller block or a small floor in a building, that’s fine, but take responsibility of something. We need as many people as possible right now.”