They're Not Trying to Win the 2026 Election. They're Trying to Make Sure You Can't.
They're Not Trying to Win the 2026 Election. They're Trying to Make Sure You Can't.
The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #890: Wednesday, May 6th, 2026.
Let’s stop pretending.
Let’s stop pretending this is normal politics. Let’s stop pretending both sides are doing the same thing at the same scale. Let’s stop pretending the people running today’s Republican Party are interested in persuading you of anything.
They are not.
They have looked at the math…and the math…tells them they lose. So…they have decided …out loud…on camera…that the answer is not to change their argument. The answer is to change the rules. And then to dare anyone to stop them.
What is happening in the runup to the 2026 midterms is the most brazen…most coordinated…most openly stated attempt to rig a federal election in modern American history.
The only reason most of your neighbors don’t know it is because the people paid to tell them have decided…it would be impolite to say so.
So I’ll say it.
The Math They’re Running From
Here’s what every Republican operative in Washington knows and won’t say to a camera.
The party in the White House loses seats in the midterms. Almost always. It happened to Obama. It happened to Trump in 2018…forty seats, gone. It happened to Biden. It is going to happen in 2026…by every poll…every model…every honest read of the political weather.
The House majority is 220 to 213. A stiff breeze flips it.
If you’re a normal political party…you respond to that by getting better. You moderate. You listen. You earn it.
If you’re this Republican Party…you do something else.
You change who gets to vote.
You change which votes get counted.
You change where the district lines run.
And…you do it in broad daylight…and you tell yourself you’re allowed to…because the other side might do it too…even though the other side mostly can’t and mostly isn’t.
Let me walk you through it.
Move One: Tear Up the Map. In the Middle of the Decade.
Congressional maps get redrawn every ten years…after the Census.
That’s been the deal in this country since before your grandparents were born. Both parties…have always cheated at the edges of it…let’s not lie to each other…but the timing was sacred.
Not anymore.
In the summer of 2025…Donald Trump picked up the phone…and told Texas Republicans to redraw their congressional map right now…three years early…for one reason: to flip up to five House seats to the GOP before a single voter cast a ballot.
A federal court found it was likely a racial gerrymander.
The Supreme Court…let it go forward anyway.
That was the starting gun. Watch the dominoes:
North Carolina…redrawn.
Missouri…turning a 6-2 Republican delegation into 7-1.
Ohio…redrawing 15 districts…finally able to do it because Republicans now own the state supreme court that used to block them.
Louisiana…suspended its primary to redraw.
Alabama and Tennessee…special legislative sessions called for the same purpose.
Florida…governor said publicly he’s “very seriously” considering it.
Indiana…held a rally for it.
CBS News did the arithmetic. The southern redraws alone…could hand Republicans between one and nine extra House seats…before voters lift a finger.
Read that again. Before voters lift a finger.
Can Democrats just do the same thing in the states they run?
Mostly, no. And…here’s the punch in the gut:
The reason they can’t…is that for twenty years…good-government Democrats…fought to put independent commissions and constitutional bans on partisan gerrymandering into the law in their own states.
They played fair. They are now the only side bringing fairness to a knife fight.
That’s not a tragic accident. That’s the entire design.
Move Two: Shorten the List of Who Gets to Vote
While the maps are being redrawn, the list of people allowed to vote on those maps is being quietly shortened.
For decades…federal law has been read to forbid mass purges of voter rolls within 90 days of an election.
They call it the “quiet period.” Reason being:
If you’re knocked off the rolls in October…you don’t have time to fix it before November. That’s not a partisan rule. That’s just decency.
This Justice Department is now arguing…out loud, in court, on the record…that the quiet period doesn’t apply to them.
They’ve launched a sprawling effort to grab voter registration files…from nearly every state and run them against an immigration database called SAVE.
That database produces false positives. We know this. It’s documented. Real American citizens…born here…get flagged as non-citizens and kicked off the rolls.
And…who tends to get caught in that net? Studies say:
Black voters…Hispanic voters…Native American voters. Naturalized citizens with foreign-sounding names. Working people who don’t have time…to drive to a county office in the middle of a workday to prove they exist.
In other words: voters who tend to vote Democratic.
You think that’s a coincidence? You think these people don’t know exactly what they’re doing?
The president of the United States has said…on camera, more than once…that a particular voting bill would let Republicans “never lose a race for fifty years.”
When somebody tells you who they are…in front of a camera…more than once…you are not allowed to keep being surprised.
Move Three: Break the Mail
On March 31 of this year, the White House signed an executive order telling the Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to voters on lists assembled by the Department of Homeland Security.
Stop and read that sentence.
The Postal Service. Taking orders from DHS. About who gets a ballot. In a country where the Constitution explicitly gives election administration to the states.
Election law professors…left…right…and center…have called the order legally indefensible. The previous version got gutted in the lower courts. This one probably gets blocked too.
But…here is what you have to understand:
The order does not have to survive in court to do its job.
The chaos is the job. The lawsuits are the job. The headlines that say “rules have changed” are the job.
The voter in Phoenix who can’t get a clear answer from her county clerk because the clerk doesn’t have a clear answer either…that voter is the entire point. A confused voter stays home. A voter who stays home is a vote they didn’t have to beat.
It is a strategy designed to disenfranchise…without ever passing a single law that disenfranchises anyone.
It is shameful. It is deliberate. And…it is working.
What Honest People Do Now
I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do.
I’m not going to pretend Democrats have never gerrymandered a map…or fought a dirty redistricting battle. They have. So has every party in American history.
Anyone telling you only one side does this…is lying to you…and you should be suspicious of them.
But…proportion is not partisanship. Proportion is not partisanship.
The mid-decade redraws…are being driven by one party…on instructions from one president…for one openly stated purpose.
The voter-roll purges are being driven by one Justice Department…against one set of voters…using one broken database. The mail-ballot order was signed by one hand.
Pretending both sides are doing this at remotely the same scale is not balance. It is cowardice with a press credential.
So here’s what you do. Three things. Not ten:
Check your voter registration today. Then in September. Then the last week of October. Don’t assume. Assumption is exactly what they are counting on.
If you vote by mail…request your ballot early. Return it early. Track it. Every system being built against you depends on you running on the old timeline.
Tell people. Not online…in person. Coworkers. Neighbors. The cousin you don’t agree with. The plan working against this country in 2026 depends entirely on most Americans deciding it’s too complicated to follow.
It is not too complicated.
It is the only story this year that matters.
They are moving the shelves while the lights are off. You can see them doing it. Now… act like it.
#HoldFast
Back soon.
-Jack
Jack Hopkins
P.S. If you're tempted to forward this to one person and call it a day…don't. Forward it to five. Then go check your registration before you close the tab.
The people running this play are betting their whole hand on you doing nothing tonight. Prove them wrong in the next ten minutes…or…don't complain in November.
Power to the People! Remember, Check, Check, Check, Vote! Tell five people! Rinse & Repeat.
#HoldFast
Jack is correct.
File the date. May 2026. Six months before a midterm election in which the president’s party has lost seats in thirty-eight of the last forty-two cycles. In which the generic ballot shows Democrats up nearly six points. In which Trump’s approval sits below forty percent.
Note which party is not running a campaign.
They are running something else. Note the sequence. The Supreme Court removes the Voting Rights Act’s core protection for majority-minority districts in Louisiana v. Callais. Within days, Trump urges states to redraw maps — including states where voting has already begun. Louisiana cancels its primaries to buy time for a new gerrymander. Florida convenes a special session. Mississippi signals it will follow.
Note what this is not. It is not a response to voter demand. It is not a policy correction. It is not an attempt to persuade.
Note what it is. It is the drawing of an enclosure.
The SAVE Act requires proof of citizenship to register. The August runoff ballot in several states excludes most Democrats and all independents by design. ICE agents at polling locations — endorsed by the acting attorney general at CPAC — have been shown to reduce minority turnout by measurable margins. Texas added three congressional districts over seventy percent Latino, then deployed enforcement mechanisms that suppress Latino participation.
These are not separate initiatives. Note which direction they all point.
Jack is correct that they are not trying to win 2026. Winning implies a contest. What is being built here is not a path to victory. It is a structure in which the outcome is decided before the votes are cast.
File this distinction. Autocracies do not ban elections. They make elections into ceremonies. The question of whether the 2026 midterms are a real contest or a managed performance will not be answered on Election Day. It is being answered now, in special sessions and redistricting chambers and Justice Department press conferences about who gets to stand near a polling place.
Note which question is not being asked loudly enough.
Note when you started reading about this. Note what you did next.
#HOLDFAST