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Obama shreds Trump's attempt to steal midterm elections
On Wednesday, former President Barack Obama called out President Donald
Trump’s push to gerrymander congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm
elections and endorsed the California ballot initiative seeking to counter
Trump’s power grab.
Obama appeared on a video call with California Gov. Gavin Newsom to support
that state’s Proposition 50, which would pause independent redistricting and
instead allow lawmakers to draw congressional maps in response to Republican
gerrymandering in other states.
“Our current president and his administration is explicitly saying that we
want to change the rules of the game midstream in order to insulate ourselves
from the people’s judgement,” Obama said.
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Obama further noted that Republicans want to change the maps “before any
election in which they’re worried they might lose—they want to tinker around to
see if they can give themselves an advantage.”
Traditionally redistricting occurs on a ten-year cycle, following the census
after which adjustments can be made to congressional districts based on
population changes. Instead, Republicans are trying to accelerate the process
and eliminate districts where voters have backed Democratic candidates.
Recent polling has shown strong support for Proposition 50 and GOP-aligned
groups opposing the ballot measure have been scaling back advertising ahead of
November’s elections.
Trump is still pushing strongly to lock in the current, narrow, Republican
majority in the House that has refused to fill its constitutional role of
providing oversight of his presidency.
Earlier this month he called a meeting of Indiana’s state Senate Republican
caucus to push them to redraw that state’s maps. Indiana is overwhelmingly
Republican, having voted for Trump by 16 points over former Vice President
Kamala Harris in the 2024 election—but Republicans still are pushing to
eliminate the state’s two Democratic congressional districts.
Pressuring Indiana would appear to be an acknowledgement of the weak position
Republicans are in ahead of the midterm election. If Trump’s agenda and job
performance were popular, it is unlikely that redistricting in safe Republican
territory would even be a topic of conversation. But his approval has been
falling since he took office.
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Democrats currently hold an aggregate lead of 2.6 percentage points over
Republicans in polling of the generic congressional vote. In eight of the ten
most recent national polls the lead has gone to the Democrats.
As Obama explained, the motivation for Republicans in pushing to rig the
process is abundantly clear.
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