Republicans are trying to rig the 2026 election in plain sight
The 2026 midterms are just over a year away, and Republicans are showing no sign of moderating their deeply unpopular agenda. So how do they plan to hold onto power in an election year that historically favors the minority party? Simple: rig the election.
Republicans already hold a disproportionate number of seats in the House of Representatives relative to their share of the popular vote, thanks to aggressive gerrymandering in GOP-controlled states. Now, facing the threat of losing their grip on power, they’re pushing for a mid-decade redistricting blitz to entrench even more extreme gerrymanders.
The opening salvo is underway in Texas, where Democratic lawmakers have fled the state to deny a quorum and block Republican efforts to redraw congressional maps that would hand the GOP five additional seats.
A draft map unveiled last week would potentially give Republicans the advantage in 30 of the state’s 38 House seats, up from the 25 the GOP currently holds, by (a) redrawing purple districts held by Democrats to be more conservative; (b) packing Democratic urban voters into fewer districts; and (c) breaking up blue suburbs and diluting their voting power by placing them into districts that include more rural, conservative voters.
According to Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu, 57 Democrats have left the state. Most have relocated to Illinois at the invitation of Gov. JB Pritzker (D). At least 51 of 62 Democrats need to be absent, and remain absent, to deny a quorum.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) threatened to petition the courts to remove any Democrats from office if they did not return by the time the House convened (yesterday, at 3 pm Central). Abbott cited a nonbinding 2021 opinion written by Attorney General Ken Paxton, which stated that “a district court may determine that a legislator has forfeited his or her office due to abandonment and can remove the legislator from office.” However, the state supreme court acknowledged at the time that the Texas Constitution allows for members to deprive the House or Senate of a quorum.
Abbott has also threatened felony bribery charges against lawmakers if they accept donations to pay the $500-per-day fines levied by the House for their absence.
Republicans voted yesterday to issue civil warrants for each absent legislator, directing the sergeant-at-arms and state troopers to arrest and bring them back to the Capitol. However, because the legislators have left the state, it is a largely symbolic measure.
Edit to add: After publishing, Sen. John Cornyn asked the F.B.I. to help locate and arrest the Democratic lawmakers. This request, alone, is a brazen abuse of power. The legislators have committed no offense against the United States.
Other GOP-controlled states are gearing up for similar mid-decade redistricting drives:
Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin said on Friday that it is “likely” that Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) will call a special legislative session to address redistricting.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said last week that he is “very seriously” considering asking the legislature to redraw the state’s congressional map, emboldened by a recent state Supreme Court ruling that upheld the GOP’s 2020 congressional gerrymander—despite a voter-approved amendment banning partisan and racial gerrymandering.
Democrats, in theory, could respond by drawing their own gerrymanders in blue states. However, Democratic-controlled states are more likely to have constitutional guardrails in place to ensure a fair redistricting process.
For example, to enact a new map before the next round of reapportionment in 2030, California would have to either (a) call a special election in less than three months and convince voters to reverse their earlier vote handing redistricting responsibilities to a nonpartisan commission, or (b) have legislators draw new maps anyway and take their chances in court. If California lawmakers can successfully navigate either path, they could potentially add five to seven Democratic seats to their congressional delegation.
The second-best state for Democrats to pick up additional seats is New York, but the effort there faces similar roadblocks. In 2014, voters created an independent redistricting commission via constitutional amendment. In order to return redistricting to lawmakers, the Legislature would have to pass a bill to create a legislatively referred constitutional amendment in two consecutive sessions, and then place the measure before voters for approval. This entire process would not be completed before the 2026 midterm elections.
Census Bureau
While Republicans redraw maps, they're also targeting the foundation of congressional apportionment: the census.
A GOP-led House Appropriations subcommittee voted last month to advance a Census Bureau funding bill that excludes undocumented immigrants from the 2030 census.
Gov. DeSantis said he spoke to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, who oversees the Census Bureau, about conducting a new census before 2030, in order to apportion more seats to Florida and fewer to California.
Trump has systematically sabotaged census integrity since taking office: he issued an executive order rescinding a Biden-era order affirming the long-standing precedent of counting noncitizens in the census, removed data from the Census Bureau website, enacted a hiring freeze that threatened the Bureau’s proper functioning, and disbanded several advisory committees that provided technical expertise.
According to an April report from NPR, “since the start of the second Trump administration, at least five division or office chiefs—including two who were part of 2030 census preparations—have left the bureau.”
Further reading: The historical context of counting noncitizens in the census
Federal interference
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is making moves that presage a more concerted effort to directly interfere in states’ election process. Over the past three months, the Department of Justice has requested copies of voter registration lists from state election administrators in at least 19 states.
Of those, nine are Democrats, five are Republicans and one is a bipartisan commission. In Colorado, the department demanded “all records” relating to the 2024 election and any records the state retained from the 2020 election.
Department lawyers have contacted officials in at least seven states to propose a meeting about forging an information-sharing agreement related to instances of voting or election fraud. The idea, they say in the emails, is for states to help the department enforce the law.
The unusually expansive outreach has raised alarm among some election officials because states have the constitutional authority to run elections and federal law protects the sharing of individual data with the government.
According to the Washington Post, the effort in Colorado is “the most unusual,” involving a well-connected consultant asking county clerks to ”allow the federal government or a third party to physically examine their election equipment.”
In a functioning democracy, we would expect the U.S. Supreme Court to defend the integrity of elections against partisan manipulation. But the Roberts Court has repeatedly proven otherwise, consistently siding with conservative interests, especially when the stakes involve access to the ballot box. Its 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause, which declared partisan gerrymandering beyond the reach of federal courts, effectively greenlit the kind of extreme map-rigging now underway in Texas. And last week, the Court announced it will hear arguments in a case that could dismantle what little remains of the Voting Rights Act. By the time Americans head to the polls in 2026, voting rights may be officially and formally dead in America.
This is absolutely ridiculous. I feel like we are playing a game with a spoiled child( well I guess perhaps we are) if things don’t go his way, he changes all the rules! We need someone to stand up to this administration and just stop this nonsense.
Please stop this now!