Earlier this year, Donald Trump reportedly asked Texas Governor Greg Abbott to redraw his congressional district maps to win more seats in 2026.
Abbott obliged, and it set off a firestorm of action in the Democrat Party.
The first to react was California Governor Gavin Newsom, who put Proposition 50 on the ballot to gerrymander California’s already gerrymandered maps, and it just passed, effectively wiping out all GOP representation in the state.
When it was first reported that Texas had agreed to redraw its maps, I immediately came out against the idea.
I have been calling out Democrat states like Illinois and California for gerrymandered maps for as long as I can remember, so I was not going to support it in my home state.
Additionally, I had voiced concerns that with such a blatant move, Democrats would respond, and if they did so in states like California and New York, they would more than offset the seats taken in Texas.
Well, Texas did it, and it played out just like I expected.
When Texas and Trump did it, this was an outrage, yet when Gavin Newsom announced his plan to further gerrymander his maps, he was applauded as a hero.
Newsom stated, “California will not sit idle as Trump and his Republican lapdogs shred our country’s democracy before our very eyes. In just six months, Trump’s unchecked power has cost Americans billions and taken an ax to the greatest democracy we’ve ever known.
“This moment calls for urgency and action – that is what we are putting before voters this November, a chance to fight back against his anti-American ways.”
There have been several other states since that have made a move to gerrymander their maps, but California is looking to wipe out just about every seat in a state that has roughly 40% Republicans.
While polling initially found that Californians were against the idea, after Newsom poured a few hundred million into the campaign, it had no problem passing on election night.
Newsom took a victory lap afterward, stating, “We’re proud of the work that the people of the state of California did tonight to send a powerful message to a historic president.
“Donald Trump is a historic president. He is the most historically unpopular president in modern history.”
Historically, midterms were already going to be very difficult for the GOP to hold the House. This move by Trump, and the retaliatory moves by Democrat states, as well as the clear signal that was sent in the 2025 election, I fully expect the GOP to get demolished in midterms unless they can make a huge splash immediately to start to sway voters. Yes, my friends, I am hitting the warning bell because we need to get moving now if we have any hope of fixing this hot mess we find ourselves in.
