Six years after Trump demanded Geogia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “find” him enough votes to win in 2020, Republicans are still trying to find him votes.
“Now, he’s calling on Texas Republicans to find five congressional seats — before a single vote is cast in the 2026 midterms. And the GOP is answering that call,” said MSNBC co-host Symone Sanders Townsend.
Townsend referenced Texas Republicans proposing a heavily gerrymandered congressional map this week that gives Republicans control of 30 out of 38 House seats, despite 42 percent of the state voting for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024.
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If enacted, Townsend said the Republican map would “erase Democratic power in one of the most diverse states in the nation.”
“We’ve seen this kind of maneuver before,” said Townsend. “After the 2010 tea party wave election, Republicans launched a nationwide campaign called the Redistricting Majority Project (REDMAP) to win control of state legislatures ahead of the 2011 redistricting cycle. That effort paid off. Republicans gerrymandered themselves into durable congressional majorities in states like North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin. A decade later, we’re still living with the consequences.”
The map, she said, “slices up Black and Latino communities,” particularly in urban centers like Dallas and Houston and gives an advantage to a white population that only comprises about 40 percent of the state’s population. The Texas Tribune reports at least 54 percent of lawmakers were white in 2023, and half are white men.
“Now, Trump is attempting a mid-decade REDMAP 2.0 in Texas, a state that already had one of the most gerrymandered congressional maps in the country and has a long history of using racial gerrymandering to suppress voters of color,” Townsend said.
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This is part of a broader Republican Party strategy, said Townsend, which targets not only congressional maps but also state legislative lines.
“And that matters, because America’s policy doesn’t begin in Washington,” she said. “It starts in state capitols. Bathroom bills. Book bans. Voter roll purgers. Attacks on trans children. These policies are born in Republican-controlled legislatures and then bubble up to the national level.”
She added that Republicans know this, and "have been playing the long game," unlike Democrats
The public is already fighting back with hundreds of protestors showing up at redistricting hearings in Texas this week, but Townsend said Democrats need to get serious about investing in and flipping state seats or they could “lose a fair shot at the House not just in 2026, but until 2032. A full decade of minority rule.”
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Read the full MSNBC report at this link.