Trump Urges GOP to Redraw Maps Ahead of Midterms, Even If It Delays Elections
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Following a Supreme Court ruling last week that upended enforcement mechanisms of the Voting Rights Act, President Donald Trump called on Republican states throughout the country to use the occasion to gerrymander their maps for political reasons.
The missive from Trump, posted on Truth Social on Monday, incorrectly implied that states had to change their maps following the court’s ruling.
“We cannot allow there to be an Election that is conducted unconstitutionally simply for the ‘convenience’ of State Legislatures,” Trump insisted.
Recognizing that his demand may result in states having to delay primary elections (as is the case in Louisiana), Trump said, “If they have to vote twice, so be it.”
Trump was not shy about why he was making his call for immediate map changes: helping Republicans in this fall’s elections. Current polling shows the party trailing Democrats, and some models show Dems ahead by as many as 15 seats.
AOC Calls on Dems to “Play by Same Rules” Republicans Do on Gerrymandering
“The byproduct is that the Republicans will receive more than 20 House Seats in the upcoming Midterms!” Trump wrote.
Many legal scholars have panned the Supreme Court ruling, which found Louisiana was improperly directed by lower courts to draw an additional Black-majority district to comply with aspects of the Voting Rights Act. Overturning that method of enforcing the VRA, dissenting Justice Elena Kagan said, was just the “latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed........
