Concerns about 2026 election-rigging spark action

Redistricting is a new front for the resistance

Concerns that Republicans are planning to rig the 2026 election are galvanizing Democrats and on Saturday sparked what could be the first of many nationwide protests.

Tens of thousands of people attended over 300 events in 44 states on Saturday, protesting Donald Trump’s push for red-state redistricting efforts intended to boost Republican chances of keeping control of Congress after the midterms.

The theme of the rallies was “Fight the Trump Takeover”.

As the New York Times reported:

The president’s push for the rare and aggressively partisan redistricting, while centered on Texas so far, has set off a furious response among many Democratic state leaders and party activists.

The protests reflected “the anger and fear that people are feeling, and their desire to fight back,” New York State Rep. Micah Lasher told the Times after a Manhattan rally.

The CBS Evening News on Saturday featured video from protests in Dallas, Austin and Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that the issue is uniting the Democratic Party and getting leaders fired up:

As the Republican president pushes states to redraw their congressional districts to the GOP’s advantage, Democrats have shown they are willing to go beyond words of outrage and use whatever power they do have to win….

“For everyone that’s been asking, ‘Where are the Democrats?’ -- well, here they are,” said U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, one of several Democrats who could be ousted under her state’s new maps. “For everyone who’s been asking, ‘Where is the fight?’ – well, here it is.”

The biggest redistricting fight is in Texas, where Democrats delayed a Republican redistricting plan for two weeks by fleeing the state. The new map, designed to flip five Democratic-held seats in Congress, is now expected to pass today. (Read about State Rep. Nicole Collier’s heroic personal resistance here.)

And Texas may only be the first of several red states to make such moves.

“There’s nothing complicated about this,” Public Citizen co-presidents Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert said in a statement. “Trump fears that voters will penalize him and his party in the next election, so he’s trying to rig the rules.”

In response, the leaders of blue states, starting with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, are hatching plans to offset Republican gains with their own redistricting plans that would benefit Democrats.

Common Cause has a useful primer on redistricting (which normally happens after each Census); gerrymandering (by which elected leaders choose their voters, rather than the other way around); and mid-decade redistricting (which is disruptive and hyper partisan.)

Although in some ways obscure, gerrymandering is nevertheless a potentially potent political issue. A new YouGov poll found that “While many Americans don’t know a lot about gerrymandering, when it is described large majorities view it as unfair (76%), a major problem (76%), and something that should be illegal (69%).”

Other Vote-Rigging Efforts

Redistricting is not the only Republican effort to rig the elections in 2026 and beyond.

The most recent threat involves Trump vowing on Monday to put an end to mail-in ballots and voting machines – although as the Associated Press reported, “based on the Constitution there is little to nothing he can do on his own.” (Trump’s assault on mail-in voting, as the Los Angeles Times reported, came right “after Russia’s autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin, told him to do so at their meeting in Alaska last week.”)

An executive order Trump issued in March directed the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to take several steps that would have suppressed voting, but two courts blocked those provisions.

Another potential threat is the SAVE Act, which was passed by the House and now awaits debate in the Senate. As the Brennan Center explained:

More than 21 million American citizens don’t have the documents required by the SAVE Act readily available. The bill would effectively eliminate forms of voter registration that millions of voters rely on: registering by mail, online, and through voter registration drives would no longer be possible.

Indeed, a recent Brennan Center report chronicles a shockingly large number of Trump administration actions intended to undermine election integrity including:

• attempting to rewrite election rules to burden voters and usurp control of election systems;

• targeting or threatening to target election officials and others who keep elections free and fair;

• supporting people who undermine election administration; and

• retreating from the federal government’s role of protecting voters and the election process.

As the Associated Press reported on Tuesday: “Trump has made clear in recent weeks that he’s willing to use the vast powers of his office to prevent his party from losing control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.”

And that doesn’t even count all the state-level actions being taken in Republican-led states, including the purging of voter rolls and the stacking of election boards with election deniers.

What will stop all this? It’s going to have to be a concerted effort. The Brennan report concludes:

The various institutions and actors that operate the constitutional checks and balances safeguarding U.S. elections — including the courts, Congress, independent federal agencies, state legislatures, state and local election officials, and the people themselves — must prevent the Trump administration’s power grab from succeeding.

Meanwhile, in D.C.

In Washington, protesters were focused on Trump’s takeover of city law enforcement, which sent federal agents and members of the National Guard pouring onto city streets.

On Saturday, as NPR reported, hundreds of protesters marched to the White House chanting "Shame" and "Trump must go now!"

The takeover is profoundly unpopular in the nation’s capital. A new Washington Post poll finds that 79 percent of residents oppose Trump’s order, with 69 percent opposing it strongly.

Reflecting that displeasure, there have also been pop-up protests all over town, including at Union Station, where National Guard vehicles have been idling for days on end.

NBC4 reported that more than a hundred people participated in a spontaneous protest last Wednesday night, heckling federal agents who had set up a checkpoint in a popular D.C. nightlife area.

And on Tuesday afternoon, a large group of Columbia Heights residents spontaneously gathered to drive a group of federal agents out of their neighborhood. Here’s an Instagram video. Zeteo political correspondent Prem Thakker has more.

A group of Washington religious leaders last week decried the federal takeover, declaring that “safety cannot be achieved through political theatre and military force.”

Churches Fighting Back Against ICE

Adrian Carrasquillo writes for The Bulwark “that a network of five thousand faith communities is now disseminating a blueprint for clergy and lay leaders who want to push back against what Trump and the agents of his newly emboldened ICE are doing to immigrants across the country.”

”Faith traditions call us to welcome the stranger, protect the vulnerable, and love our neighbors,” the blueprint states. “In the face of renewed ICE enforcement actions and immigration raids, we must be ready to act swiftly, courageously, and in solidarity.”

A series of ten steps includes “Form a Rapid Response Team,” “Set Up a Faith-Based Alert Network,” and “Make Your Church a Public Sanctuary Space.”

Booed Off Stage

Elise Stefanik, the Republican congresswoman from New York, was booed off the podium at a local event in her district on Monday, USA Today reported.

"Shame!" protesters shouted, along with "Unseal the Epstein files!"

Call Tonight

A coalition of democracy groups is hosting a call tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET “to highlight efforts at the state and local level to defend the rule of law, uplift bold local leadership, protect our freedoms, and inspire coordinated action.”

Eight Rules of Antiauthoritarianism

Protect Democracy staffers interviewed dozens of leaders, experts, practitioners, and scholars from around the world about how their electoral systems have been corrupted, the tactics they’ve used to try and safeguard them, and what gives them hope.

They then came up with eight rules of antiauthoritarianism that democracy defenders can apply to keep the United States from declining into a more authoritarian form of government. Each rule is accompanied by a case study from one of the countries they examined:

• Rule one: Resist. Then adapt (Hungary)

• Rule two: Be unified. Be visible (Turkey)

• Rule three: Win lawsuits and hearts and minds (Mexico)

• Rule four: Leadership lives in everyone (Cambodia)

• Rule five: Show — don’t tell — how things work and what is trustworthy (Nigeria)

• Rule six: Remember: Autocrats are not invincible. But be careful (Zimbabwe)

• Rule seven: Leave the door open for defectors (Serbia)

• Rule eight: Keep going (Poland)

This Week in Lawsuits

A federal judge in New York ruled that ICE’s targeting of immigrants attending immigration court hearings is illegal. In his blistering decision, Judge Dale E. Ho wrote that "treating attendance in immigration court as a game of detention roulette is not consistent with the constitutional guarantee of due process."

A federal judge in California ordered the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to stop giving deportation officials access to the personal information of all 79 million Medicaid enrollees.

A federal judge in Washington blocked the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into Media Matters, finding the "expansive" investigation is "a retaliatory act" for the group’s criticism of Elon Musk. “It should alarm all Americans when the Government retaliates against individuals or organizations for engaging in constitutionally protected public debate,” wrote Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan. “And that alarm should ring even louder when the Government retaliates against those engaged in newsgathering and reporting.”

Closing Thoughts

Civil rights lawyer Sherilyn Ifill, writing in her must-read newsletter, leaves us with this inspirational message:

When we feel assaulted on every front as we increasingly do, we must rebuild our inner resolve to survive this time, so that we can build a better country for our future and that of our children.

We’re resisting in all the right ways. If you see a future for yourself or your children in this country, don’t stop now.