Trump Is ‘Cheating Americans’ With Texas Redistricting Plans

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker isn’t pulling punches. He called Donald Trump a “cheater” and blasted Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as a “joke” for their bizarre attempts to redistrict Texas in a way that would unfairly give Republicans more seats in Congress as the GOP tries to stave off a blue wave in the 2026 midterm elections.

Pritzker’s state is hosting Texas Democrats who fled Texas in order to deny a quorum and stall Republican legislators’ attempts at gerrymandering. Abbott has threatened to arrest the lawmakers who left the state, and Republican Sen. John Cornyn has said the FBI is helping efforts to return the legislators to Texas.

Responding to comments from Abbott, who called Illinois’ congressional map a “joke,” Pritzker said, “Governor Abbott is the joke. He’s the one who is attempting mid-decade here, at a time when frankly all of us are concerned about the future of democracy, he’s literally helping whittle it away and licking the boots of his leader, Donald Trump.”

Pritzker defended Illinois’ process of creating its district map. “Here in Illinois, we followed the law. We provided a map and passed a map that follows the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution and the laws of the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said. “[Abbott is] attempting to thwart federal law and take away five seats that are in the hands of Black, Brown, minority Congress people and the people that they represent. He’s taking those votes away. He’s violating the Constitution.”

In most states, the legislature redraws congressional districts once every 10 years after the U.S. Census is released. Trump is already talking about plans to redesign the 2030 Census to exclude undocumented immigrants, despite the Constitution saying that the Census must count “the whole number of persons in each State.” Trump also messed with the 2020 Census, leading to undercounts in at least six states and overcounts in eight other states. (The 2010 Census, for comparison, did not contain any undercounts or overcounts.) He also tried to add a citizenship question to the Census, but a federal judge blocked it.

Pritzker said that Trump’s motives to change the makeup of Congress demonstrate his fears of possible losses in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections: “He’s attempting to change the game because he passed this big ugly bill that’s hyper-unpopular in Texas, among people in Texas and across the country. And he knows he’s going to lose the Congress in 2026. That’s why he’s going to his allies and hoping that they can save him.”

“It’s cheating. Donald Trump is a cheater. He cheats on his wives. He cheats at golf. And now he’s trying to cheat the American people out of their votes,” Pritzker concluded.

Congressional Democrats, for once, are at least talking like they are prepared to strongly counter Trump’s efforts with redistricting of their own. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is “talking to other states” about potential redistricting plans, Axios reported.

“The Republicans are counting on that as part of their scheme to try to steal the midterm elections and gerrymander these congressional maps with impunity,” Jeffries said in an interview with ABC News last week.

Democratic governors in California and New York have threatened to redistrict their own states to combat Republican changes in Texas while the GOP eyes Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and Florida as its next gerrymandering targets.

“I think there’s broad agreement by Democrats that … we simply can’t stand by and let the Republican Party completely ruin the map,” Democratic Rep. Joe Morelle told Axios. “The base and those of us in elected office feel equally outraged by what is happening.”

Eric Holder, who served as attorney general under former President Barack Obama and now leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said even if Democrats do redistrict their states, it would be “responsive” and “temporary.”

“When Barack Obama was president, when Joe Biden was president, did either of those presidents call a governor of a state or a state legislature and tell them to gerrymander to find five seats for them? No,” Holder said. “So we’re doing something now that is responsive to what is going on with this White House.”

Holder compared Trump’s efforts to redistrict Texas to Trump’s attempts to influence Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” him more votes after the 2020 election.

“That call to Texas is kind of reminiscent of the call that President Trump made to the secretary of state in Georgia,” Holder told NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday. “He said, ‘Find me 11,780 votes.’ He calls Texas now and says, ‘Well, find me five seats so that we can save the House in 2026.’”