Trump's Plan to Steal the 2026 Election

Donald Trump doesn't want to win over voters in the 2026 midterm elections. He has a different plan that is already underway and uses a tool that fair elections dread: Gerrymandering.

Opinion

We all have something in mind when we think of President Donald Trump's attempts to steal an election. We think of his failed pursuits in 2020/2021, when he tried to steal the election from Biden, the righteous winner. This was an attempt to steal an election that is easy to point out. Trump called for uncounted votes to be thrown out in states he was behind, he called the Secretary of State in Georgia and asked for 11,000 more votes, and he even tried to send fake electors to D.C. for January 6th. A day that marked the dramatic and tragic finale of Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Now, he is President. He didn’t have to try to rig anything, because he won, but he has an important election coming up next year. In November 2026, during the so-called midterm elections, all House Representatives and a third of all US Senators are up for reelection.

While Democrats face tough chances in the Senate (due to it benefiting small, rural states: 50 million Californians have two Senators, about a million South Dakotans also have two), they are the favorites to take back the House of Representatives.

This would mean a repeat of 2018, Trump’s first midterm election, where Democrats flipped a stunning 40 seats in the House. From then on, they were able to block Trump’s agenda and impeach him twice. So, as he grows more unpopular, Trump is understandably worried about the 2026 midterms.

But he has a plan to steal the election that is already underway. Not hidden, but out in the open. The key: Gerrymandering.

Stealing an Election With Gerrymandering

For those who don’t know, Gerrymandering describes an unfair action in redistricting, in which House districts are drawn in a way to benefit one party. Maps for the House are drawn by state legislatures at the beginning of each decade and can therefore be subject to partisan greed.

Some, mostly Democratic states, have independent redistricting committees to ensure fairness.

For those who need a quick explanation about Gerrymandering, there’s a great video by VOX:

A quick example: Before the 2024 election, Republicans in North Carolina gerrymandered the state’s congressional map. As a result, Republicans won 10 of 14 seats in a state where the vote was about 50-50. In Wisconsin, another 50-50 swing state, Republicans won 8 of 10 seats. Both maps got an F-rating by the Redistricting Report Card.

Gerrymandering ensures parties win seats safely without any close contests. Voting becomes a farce, as it doesn’t matter if Democrats win 55% or 60% of the vote in NC: Republicans would still win 10 of 14 seats. When voting becomes irrelevant, one has to doubt whether American Democracy can survive.

For 2026, Trump has a new game plan. Instead of winning over voters, he is simply asking Republican states to redraw their maps to secure new seats. The first Republican state that bent the knee was Texas.

Texas Eradicates Five Democratic Seats

Republicans already hold a 25 to 13 seat lead in the current map (Texas is a Republican +5 to +10 state). Now, they are drawing new maps with one sole purpose: To eradicate Democratic seats. The first proposal would eliminate five Democratic seats in Congress. Not by being popular and winning over voters, but by cheating, because Gerrymandering is, in most cases, illegal. However, most conservative courts do little to stop Gerrymandering.

If Texas goes through with its extreme Gerrymander and other Republican states follow suit, Democrats will have a difficult time winning back the House. They could sweep the 2026 election, win by millions of votes, and still lose.

In that case, one could hardly call it a Democratic and fair election. Most voters could simply stay home; it wouldn’t matter.

The good (yet gutting) news is that Democrats are ready. They know Republicans don’t seem to care about preserving fair elections. They also know that the courts likely won’t stop Republicans’ attempts to cheat.

Democrats Are Fighting Back

So Democrats have decided to abandon their „when they go low, we go high“ moral policy. They are stepping down into the mud, ready to fight. Democrats control hugely important states like California and New York. According to analysts, these Democratic states right now have relatively competitive & fair maps, which means there are a lot (16) of Republican seats there.

California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that California could suspend their fair committee-based redistricting process if Texas goes through with its extreme Gerrymander. Doing so would require the support of voters in a special election, but the independent commission is highly popular in California. Democrats would have to bank on their base’s frustration and anger over the issue and potentially only ask for a pause for the committee until 2031.

If California Democrats & voters follow Newsom’s directive, and right now it looks like they might, they could Gerrymander California to obliterate Republican-held seats.

While most Democrats usually hold themselves to high standards when it comes to redistricting - they tried to ban Gerrymandering federally in 2021 - they seem to be ready to abandon those moral values to fight back against Republicans. In the end, they could match the number of Democratic seats Republicans are eradicating or go even further and get themselves an advantage.

A Necessary Tragedy?

It would level the playing field and give Democrats a fair chance of retaking the House. It is also likely the only right response. If Democrats don’t fight back and let Republicans essentially steal the election in this manner, they could be shut out of power forever.
It seems like Democrats’ fight to defend American Democracy requires them to undermine its values first.

Of course, this is also a tragedy. If Democrats match Republican efforts, which they probably should, the 2026 election will see maps that are gerrymandered down to the last bit. A lot of close contests that engage voters and drive up turnout would be lost.

The election would already be decided before Election Day. Since Democracies need voter engagement and participation to survive, the consequences of this tragedy could be dire.

The Gerrymandering contest also counters attempts by Democrats to ban the measure, just after they had achieved their first successes. In Wisconsin, Democrats flipped the conservative State Supreme Court. The new, more liberal court overturned the maps for the state legislature (the State House and State Senate) that had received an F rating for being heavily gerrymandered. The new maps, made by Democratic Governor Tony Evers, are fairly drawn and were awarded A-ratings.