One of the things Democrats hate most about Donald Trump is that he plays politics like Democrats do. He doesn’t tie one hand behind his back, playing by rules that his opponents ignore entirely. The difference is that Democrats still pretend to care about “norms” and “process,” only to eviscerate those norms and processes on their way to victory at all costs. Trump says right up front that he just wants to win. And Democrats can’t stand it.
The latest example is gerrymandering in Texas. It started with the Justice Department’s determination that there were “unconstitutional racial gerrymanders” in certain majority-minority districts in the Lone Star State. Republican Governor Greg Abbott called a special session of the legislature to deal with it “in light of constitutional concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice.”
Trump also weighed in, calling on Texas Republicans to work out a more favorable map. They responded yesterday by releasing their new districting map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. It still must go through the approval process and withstand inevitable court challenges, but the goal is to increase GOP-held seats in the U.S. House. If things play out the way Republicans hope, they could gain five of them. “Just a simple redrawing,” Trump said recently, “we pick up five seats.” Instead of 25 seats, they hope for 30.
Essentially, Texas Republicans are consolidating Democrat-heavy areas and moving Republican voters into other districts to secure wins. It puts some GOP incumbents in more competitive districts, but Republicans hope to have a stronger overall position. Democrats Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez better start brushing up their résumés.
TEXAS GOP PROPOSE CONGRESSIONAL MAP ELIMINATING 5 DEMOCRATIC SEATS pic.twitter.com/zUgfKjHG0c
— NewsWire (@NewsWireUS) US/status/1950565448942068074?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>July 30, 2025
Restricting midway between censuses is unusual but not unheard of. What is less normal is a president unabashedly saying he wants to do so to help retain the House in the midterm election. How dare he be so honest?
“Two can play this game,” California Governor Gavin Newsom postured. Two have been playing this game — Republicans are just responding. I’m old enough to remember having written about their efforts in 2022. Our Michael Swartz wrote about it again in 2024.
Either Democrats suffer from short-term memory loss or they’re lying.
Nevertheless, Newsom and other Democrats in solidly blue states are suddenly working on their own plans to swipe even more GOP seats than they did three years ago. California Democrats will find that harder given that redistricting is controlled by a nonpartisan commission.
Politico reports, “Redrawing California’s map would require either calling a special election and convincing voters to return line-drawing power to politicians after they specifically voted to entrust a nonpartisan commission with that authority, or simply having the Legislature draw maps and effectively daring the courts to stop them.”
Democrats want you to believe that Republicans are uniquely shameless, but Vice President JD Vance singled out California for its flagrantly partisan map. “The gerrymander in California is outrageous,” Vance said on X. “Of their 52 congressional districts, 9 of them are Republican. That means 17 percent of their delegation is Republican when Republicans regularly win 40 percent of the vote in that state. How can this possibly be allowed?”
“Democracy,” that’s how. Wink wink.
Vance knows his calculation isn’t really the way things work, and he knows that math can cut both ways, but his point is to highlight Democrats’ hypocrisy.
Speaking of hypocrites, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries accused the Republicans of being “afraid of the voters in 2026 in the midterm elections,” adding that “they’re trying to cheat to win.”
He didn’t have a problem with Democrats doing this in previous years, but it’s funny that he should mention cheating. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris allowed millions of illegal aliens to enter and take up residence all over the country. If those residents are counted, they affect the apportionment of House seats.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis challenged California on this point. “How many seats would California lose if you only counted lawful people?” DeSantis asked. “They would lose a lot of seats because they’re a sanctuary state.”
Democrats will do anything and everything to win elections. Gerrymandering is just one of many strategies, which also include concocting phony intelligence to destroy a candidate and suppressing free speech during a tyrannically handled pandemic.
As for the gerrymander, though, Republicans are tired of playing nice. According to one operative, “In an arms race where there’s a race to gerrymander the most, there’s not a scenario where they have more seats than we do.” Democrats might end up regretting what they started.
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Image credit: Born Isopod, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Altered to add gray background and yellow caption.
