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August 6, 2025 6 mins
Sarah is looking at how the Midterm elections coming up could shift how we vote for a lifetime. It's a mess in Texas right now with the re-districting mess that happens tomorrow, as Texas tries to get Trump 5 more seats. 
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now let's talk to Sarah Isker, ABC News contributor in Washington.
She's with us every Wednesday at this time. Sarah, I
know you've been covering this Texas redistricting mess. What is
the latest?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
So this is my home turf. I've been working in
Texas politics, you know, for twenty five years. I remember
when they left in two thousand and three. So this
is a tactic that Texas legislators have used before the
Democrats that basically, if they leave the state, they can
deny the legislature a quorum, meaning that they can't move

(00:36):
forward with business. In this case, it's the business of
doing a mid decade redistricting, redrawing those congressional maps because
Republicans think that they can squeeze five more seats for
Republican gains in the midterm elections, which is a huge
deal because Republicans have such a slim majority in the
House of Representatives right now. Five seats out of Texas

(01:00):
would be a very big deal. Will the gambit work it?
The last time this gambit worked was in the nineteen seventies,
so almost certainly not. Democrats will be able to delay it,
but they may rack up up to four hundred thousand
dollars in fines in the meantime for missing official business.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Here's what I don't understand about it at Sarah, and
that is, why don't they just let this happen and
take it to court. It's going to end up there anyway.
Why don't they just get that over with? Or do
they want this grandstanding to say this is a bigger
cause because they're getting a lot of national attention.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
That's exactly right. I mean, it certainly gets you a
lot of headlines, and they'll do both. They of course
will bring lawsuits on the back end of this as well.
You know, if you wanted to be really you know,
brass tacks about it, if you delay the redistricting maps
by you know, a month or so with this tactic,
that helps you with your lawsuit a little bit, because

(01:56):
of course the midterm elections aren't going to move so
if you and tie up the maps in litigation, you
want that to happen as close to the election as
possible in the hopes that you still get to use
the old maps.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
What do you think this thing that Governor Abbott is
saying that because they're accepting money for their trips and
their trips are political in nature. He considers that a bribe,
and it sounds like President Trump agrees with them, and
that that could call the FBI in to go and
arrest them on felony charges. That seems extreme.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
And does not meet the federal definition of bribery. I've
also worked at the Department of Justice where they bring
these cases, and that's not going to be a particularly
close call at the end of the day legally. But
you know, we've also seen Democrats really lagging in fundraising
across the country for these midterm election races in Congress.
That should be a much bigger concern for Democrats than potential,

(02:54):
you know, FBI investigations at this point. Now, as you said,
this generates a lot of headlines. Obviously they're hoping that
this will be a fundraising boon, but so far Democrats
have really had a lackluster dollar number for a bunch
of these races. Republicans out raising them at the national level.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
And I've been stunned by the polls. I look at
the Cook Report all of the time. I'm just addicted
to it, and it has if you play it all out,
and so much has to happen I get that it's
a long ways away, but as it stands right now,
they have a pickup of Republicans for five seats. That's
unusual in the middle of a presidential term that the

(03:36):
party in power in the White House would actually pick
up seats.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
I mean, unusual doesn't even begin to describe it. Usually,
midterm elections are a referendum on the White House, the
president in power, and so they lose seat. Now, sometimes
it's a catastrophic loss, sometimes it's just a little bit
of a loss. But yes, right now, on the House side,
it's the election we're held today, it does look like

(04:02):
Republicans might pick up a few seats. Now, there's some
really good questions about why that would be. Is it
because Donald Trump's policies are so popular, or is it
because of those demographic changes and the realignment between the
two parties where you have people who had been voting
Democrat who have now moved over to the Republican side.
Who steals that the Democratic Party has shifted, you know,

(04:26):
depending on how you want to describe it, too far
to the left. They're focused on issues that aren't pocketbook issues,
et cetera, et cetera, And I mean, that's the real
money question for Democrats right now. Why are they still
losing altitude even with Trump and the in the White House.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Getting back to the redistricting of controversy for a second,
I think people need to understand exactly what's going on
and why it's controversial. Because redistricting happens all the time,
and within the states, there's controversy, there's fights over it,
there's lawsuits over it. But redistricting usually happens after a census.

(05:02):
The reason this one is so controversial is the timing of.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
It, that's right. So you usually hear census news with
a year ending in one, maybe two, maybe even the
lawsuits might stretch into a year ending in three. But
what Texas is talking about doing here is actually just
redoing redistricting, despite the fact that they don't have to.
There's no new census, they don't have to reapportion these

(05:28):
districts because of population shifts. They just want to reapportion
them for political gains. Now, once Texas does this, you
have states like California and New York saying that they'll
do the same thing. But it's much harder to do
in those states than in Texas. You also have a
state like Missouri saying they'll do the same thing for
more Republican games. And so it's really setting off this

(05:49):
domino effect around the country of other states saying, well,
if we're going to do this for politics, let's match
out the jerrymandering and make these districts as politically advantageous
as possible. But there is a danger to this, which
is to make these districts, you know, as politically advantageous
as possible, you have to lower the margins, which means
each of those races becomes a little bit tighter and

(06:10):
a little bit scarier for the party in charge. It
could backfire on either party that does it.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Great stuff. Sarah Isker, ABC News contributor, Washington. She's with
us every Wednesday at this time. Talk to you next week, Sarah,
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
That's right,
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