US President Donald Trump and Republicans face a daunting challenge: How to preserve power in the wake of their wildly unpopular policies?

Their strategy is to intensify the GOP’s decades-long quest to limit voter participation. Selecting the voters likely to cast ballots for them is far better than letting all voters select their leaders.

Trump has taken the strategy to a whole new level. And he’s doing it out of fear and desperation.

During midterm elections, the president’s party loses seats in Congress. In Trump’s first term, Republicans lost 40 seats in the House in 2018. In 2010, President Barack Obama’s Democrats lost 63.

The exceptions are few and far between. In the aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush’s GOP gained eight House seats in 2002, but then lost 30 in 2006. In 1998, President Bill Clinton’s Democrats gained five seats, but that didn’t offset the 52 seats that they had lost in 1994. In all but three midterm elections from 1934 to 1994—from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton—the president’s party lost House seats. It did a little better in the Senate, gaining seats in only 6 of 23 midterm elections since 1934.

With Republicans holding a slim 219-212 majority heading into the 2026 midterms, Trump has every reason to panic at what awaits him in 15 months.

Every 10 years, the Commerce Department conducts a census of the entire country. US census data is then used to apportion federal funding and representation in the House, as well as each state’s Electoral College votes. It’s also used by businesses, researchers, and community planners.

The next national redistricting will occur after the 2030 census. But Trump persuaded Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session that would redraw congressional districts five years early to give Republicans five additional seats in Congress now.

According to the Texas Tribune, a majority of the Texas congressional delegation was wary of the idea, fearing that redistricting might spread their voters too thinly:

Enter Trump:

Trump’s allies are now pushing other state governors to squeeze away Democratic seats in Florida, Indiana, South Carolina, and Missouri. In a 21st-century version of the Civil War, some Democratic governors in blue states are contemplating a response in kind.

Likewise, winning is easier for Republicans if they can systematically prevent likely........

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