Winning just nine more House seats than Democrats in the 2022 midterms means the Republican caucus has very little room for error.
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Reps. Laurel Lee (R-Fla) and Terri Sewell (D-Ala) at Wednesday’s House Administration Elections Subcommittee hearing titled, “Examining Best Practices for Strengthening Election Security.”
(Kaitlin Bender-Thomas/MedillNews Service)
Election Officials Warn of Rising Threats As Security Funding Declines Ahead of Midterms
May 24, 2026
WASHINGTON –Election officials warned lawmakers on Wednesday that threats against election workers and voting systems are escalating even as federal funding for election security remains far below 2020 levels, posing risks ahead of the 2026 midterms.
In 2020, Congress allocated $425 million for election security grants, compared to $15 million in 2025 and $45 million this year. The Trump administration has also proposed a $707 million cut to the CyberSecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s fiscal 2027 budget and ended the agency’s election security support for state and local governments.
These concerns were raised during a House Subcommittee on Elections hearing on election security. Thomas Hicks, chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, which distributes federal funds to states and territories to improve election administration, said election workers across the country have faced phishing attacks, bomb threats, and swatting incidents — false emergency reports intended to trigger large police responses at polling locations.
Hicks cited a 2024 poll that found 38 percent of local election officials have experienced threats, harassment or abuse because of their jobs, and more than half said they knew someone who left the profession due to safety concerns. He also referenced a recent incident in Pennsylvania where an explosive device detonated near a polling place.
“For the United States to continue to be a world leader in election best practices, the federal government must support and invest in our election infrastructure,” Hicks said.
While lawmakers on both sides agreed on the need for secure, trusted elections, they disagreed over whether the greater threat is noncitizen voting or underfunded election infrastructure.
Throughout the hearing, Republicans largely focused on noncitizens illegally casting ballots and called for stricter voter identification requirements, even though studies show cases of noncitizen voting are extremely rare. Democrats, however, contended that election offices need more funding.
Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala, said the election security grants appropriated under the Help America Vote Act have helped states improve voting systems, but she argued that more is needed amid the growing security threats. She criticized the Trump administration’s spending, citing a new $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who believe they were unfairly targeted by the Justice Department.
“Congress has the responsibility to act before vulnerabilities become a crisis,” Sewell said. “The cost of prevention is far lower than the cost of repairing public trust.”
Sewell asked Hicks how the decline in election security funding is manifesting across states.
“The officials that I've talked to have said that they are going to have to cut back on a few things in order to ensure that things remain safe and secure for the elections moving forward,” Hicks replied.
Sewell then directed her line of questioning to Christy McCormick, vice chair of the Election Assistance Commission.
“Ms. McCormick, I know that we appropriated about $45 million in 2026, and I'm hearing from lots of secretaries of state that that's simply not enough, and directly from election administrators that that's simply not enough,” Sewell said. “What are you seeing is going undone because of the decrease in the amount of funding?”
McCormick explained that the $45 million must be distributed among all 50 states and the territories, and agreed with Sewell that it works out to be roughly $250,000 per state.
“It’s a minimum amount of money and states can’t use that money to do things like purchase new voting systems, which a lot of them are in the position of needing to do at this point,” McCormick said.
She added that states also cannot use these funds for other security priorities, such as training personnel or improving physical and cybersecurity.
“All of that costs money, right?” Sewell asked.
“Yes, it does,” McCormick responded.
But the hearing grew even more contentious when Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., raised concerns about noncitizen voting and accused Democrats of opposing election integrity measures.
“We all know the Democrats want to cheat by not passing the SAVE America Act,” Miller said.
The SAVE Act is a Trump-backed bill that would require people registering to vote in federal elections to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship, such as a U.S. passport or birth certificate. It passed the House but stalled in the Senate, lacking the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
Miller pressed Hicks on what the Election Assistance Commission is doing to ensure noncitizens are not voting in U.S. elections.
Hicks pushed back both times, reiterating that the Election Assistance Commission does not oversee voter eligibility.
“The EAC does not run elections, so we can’t do anything to ensure that. That’s a state issue,” he said.
Miller quickly challenged this, saying, “You should be taking steps, though, to mitigate illegal voting by noncitizens.”
Miller argued that if election officials want additional federal funding, then the federal government should be able to impose stricter voter identification and citizenship requirements.
This debate among lawmakers comes as a recent POLITICO poll found that over one-third of Americans believe the 2026 midterms are likely to be “stolen,” while one in four do not expect the elections to be fair. But there’s little consensus on the cause of this distrust, with Republicans citing voter fraud and Democrats pointing to voter suppression.
During the hearing, Sewell argued that disinformation and Republican-led redistricting efforts have undermined public trust in elections.
“Our president and his allies have…widely spread debunked conspiracy theories and false claims that are designed to undermine our collective belief in democracy,” Sewell said, referring to the administration’s repeated false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
Sewell also cited the recent Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act, arguing that it will erase Black political representation at all levels of government.
Some Republicans, however, argued that administrative mistakes also erode trust in elections.
Rep. Greg Murphy, R-NC, called out a recent ballot error in Maryland, where officials had to reissue over 500,000 mail-in ballots after some voters received ballots for the wrong party’s primary. He asked Donald Palmer, former commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission, about the incident.
“It’s a lot, sir,” Palmer said. “It’s a huge mistake.”
Murphy argued that such incidents show why election reform is necessary.
“It just shows that there are problems with our election system,” Murphy said. “It’s okay to question it. It’s okay for us to do due diligence on these types of things.”
Kaitlin Bender-Thomas is a graduate journalism student at Northwestern University and a reporter for the Medill News Service.
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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news briefing at the White House on Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Supreme Court earlier ruled against Trump's use of emergency powers to implement international trade tariffs, a central portion of the administration’s core economic policy.
(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/TNS)
The Founding Fathers would’ve gotten rid of Trump long ago
May 24, 2026
In 1788, Virginia convened a convention to debate ratification of the new U.S. Constitution, promulgated in Philadelphia the year before.
The pardon power proved to be a sticking point for some delegates. George Mason, the primary author of Virginia’s own constitution, was among those worried that the unchecked ability to unilaterally pardon criminality could lead to abuses of power. What if the president “may frequently pardon crimes which were advised by himself”?
James Madison acknowledged that this would be a serious abuse but argued there was a remedy.
“There is one security in this case to which gentlemen may not have adverted,” Madison said, “if the president be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; (and) they can remove him if found guilty.”
This episode has gathered fresh attention in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots, and the impeachment trial it ignited. President Trump was impeached but not convicted.
That was a mistake in my opinion. But I’m not here to relitigate it. I want to be forward-looking.
The British statesman Edmund Burke famously argued that one of the “fundamental rules” of a decent society was that “no man should be judge in his own cause.”
For the founders, this insight informed the logic of the entire constitutional project. Burke’s observation was so universally agreed upon it often came up — sometimes without attribution — in debates at the Constitutional and ratifying conventions.
Madison invokes the idea in Federalist 10, in the context of faction and the need to have separation of powers. “No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause; because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.”
Alexander Hamilton cites it in Federalist 80 as the reason why federal courts should adjudicate disagreements between states — it was assumed that state judges might be biased toward their own side of the dispute.
This idea lurks behind all of Congress’ powers and responsibilities, including advice and consent, the sole authority to tax and spend, the power to declare war and, of course, impeachment. Presidents are not arbitrary rulers. They are stewards, with defined and limited powers.
On Monday, President Trump settled a $10 billion lawsuit brought by himself. In his first term, Trump’s tax returns were illegally leaked. When Trump returned to the presidency he filed suit against the Internal Revenue Service. So, as a constitutional matter, Trump is suing the executive branch he runs for a crime committed by the IRS back when he ran it in his first term.
Realizing that the courts might find this too cute to countenance, the Justice Department and IRS — both, again, run by Trump — compromised by creating a $1,776,000,000 fund (that “1776” before all the zeros is a play on the country’s 250th birthday) that Trump will control. Its primary function would be to compensate the Jan. 6 rioters, all of whom he has already pardoned.
The president recently said that if China invades Taiwan, he alone will determine whether the U.S. will defend Taiwan. “Me. I’m the only person” who decides. Last summer, Trump told the Atlantic that the difference between his first term and his second was that he didn’t have anyone in his administration to hinder him. This time, “I run the country and the world.” Congress and the courts don’t enter into it.
After Trump unilaterally replaced at gunpoint the president of Venezuela with a pliant satrap, without the approval of Congress, the New York Times asked if there were any limits on his will: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
I began with a discussion of the pardon power and impeachment for a reason. Contrary to thousands of hours of impeachment legal punditry going back to the Nixon administration, a president doesn’t have to commit a crime to be impeached. As Hamilton writes in Federalist 65, impeachment involves “the misconduct of public men” and “the abuse or violation of some public trust.” Impeachments are “POLITICAL” (Hamilton’s all-caps) because they injure “society itself.”
It may in fact be legal for the president to be the judge in his own cause and create a taxpayer-financed slush fund for him to reward cronies and henchmen on a whim. It is already clear that presidents can launch wars without Congress or the courts unduly getting in the way. But I struggle to think of hypothetical scenarios that would be more likely to arouse in Madison and his contemporaries the — now misplaced — reassurance that impeachment was an available remedy.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
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Preventing a Decade-Long Republican Lock In the House of Representatives
May 23, 2026
Political developments in the United States highlighted a trend of democratic slippage…. Today, the state and fate of democracy in the world is perhaps more uncertain than it has been in our lifetimes.”
Kevin Casas-Zamora, 2025, International IDEA
Donald Trump has caused a decline globally in democracy, the authoritative international institute V-Dem declaring that he is “unraveling the democratic era.” Pay-to-play, government fostered disinformation, an obsequious legislature, White House grifting, a President above the law, and a deeply partisan Supreme Court – no wonder U.S. democracy in 2025 was rated a dismal 66th by Freedom House – less democratic than Mongolia or Panama, little better than Bulgaria or Ghana.
While Trump is blamed, he is merely the chalice. The poison is his enablers - the canny, corrupt Roberts Supreme Court Republican majority. They are a throwback to the Fuller court of Plessy v Ferguson notoriety that exalted Jim Crow. The Encyclopedia of the American Constitution explains that during the Fuller era:
“blacks, through one scheme or another, were disenfranchised on a grand scale. The Fifteenth Amendment was reduced to a nullity.”
And while they are most certainly not the first white supremacist court, the Roberts Republicans are acknowledged to be the first partisan court in U.S. history, scheming to enact their Republican patrons' agenda – even mimicking Weimar era justices in granting unconstitutional monarchical powers to a cruel narcissist authoritarian.
The evidence is the Roberts Court history of rulings – Shelby County, Brnovich, and Rucho - that kneecapped both minority voting rights and the Democratic Party. Those twin goals are most recently exemplified by their April 2026 ruling in Callais, which will diminish minority power in Congress.
Moreover, Callais may well enable their Republican patrons to create a stranglehold on the House of Representatives for many years to come. That danger arises from the combined impact of Callais and Congressional reapportionment following the 2030 decennial census.
Congressional Reapportionment
From their base of 19 traditionally blue states and the District of Columbia (plus one electoral vote from Nebraska), Democratic presidential nominees in the 2020’s needed to win just the three upper-midwest swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to accumulate 273 electoral votes (EV), surpassing the 270 majority threshold.
Reapportionment following the 2030 decennial census will make Democrats' path to 270 EV more treacherous. Out-migration during the 2020’s from California, New York, and other blue states will likely shift 12 of the 435 Congressional seats (and 12 EV in the Electoral College) from blue to red states. The Democrats’ base of 273 EV will shrink to 261 EV. Thus, to reach 270 EV in the 2030s, a Democratic presidential nominee will have to retain the three upper-midwest swing states plus win either Arizona (11 EV), Georgia (16 EV), or North Carolina (16 EV).
Voters in Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina are typically Republicans – having supported Democratic nominees just once (2020) since 2000 and then very narrowly.
Winning a Governing Trifecta in 2028
To improve their Electoral College odds in these six swing states, Democrats have just a few years to upgrade their political profile. Yet to realistically have a chance to conduct such a makeover, they must win a governing trifecta in 2028 – both houses of Congress and the presidency.
That makeover - as Party experts like James Carville and Stan Greenberg have repeatedly urged - should center the Party’s agenda on economic challenges such as stagnant wages, inflation, and AI that bedevil working- and middle-class voters. Surveys, for instance, affirm that financially precarious working-class women in particular are promising Democratic electoral targets. And leading strategists cite polling showing that 74% of all voters want Democrats to focus on affordability, especially lowering health care costs, and 82% want them to protect Social Security and Medicare.
Other important issues are elitist Trump administration policies, including tax cuts for the wealthy, and spiking gasoline and food prices. Moreover, 61% of independents see Trump as corrupt, an issue that recently doomed the Hungarian Viktor Orbán. Trump grifted $3 billion in 2025 and routinely sells pardons for millions – freeing convicted thieves and international drug lords incarcerated by Democrats. In addition, the Democrats should deemphasize social issues, partly responsible for their historically poor polling, perhaps adopting the Olympics’ new objective standard for women's sports.
Winning a trifecta in 2028 will afford Democrats a chance to rectify their reputation for incompetence by showing swing state voters that they can deliver on promises. It would enable them, for example, to resurrect the Biden-era refundable child tax credit that cut child poverty in half and to protect Social Security and Medicare, extremely popular programs being reduced and privatized by Republicans. Success on these and other impactful middle-class economic policies would embellish Democrats’ standing. And it would lift spirits, renewing faith in government as an instrument for good, faith battered by decades of Republicans and their billionaire donors who view successful government programs as an abomination.
Callais Can Prevent a Democratic Trifecta
The partisan Callais ruling markedly darkens Democrats’ prospects of winning that vital trifecta in 2028.
In the months prior to Callais, the red states of Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio gerrymandered at Trump’s urging nine blue Congressional districts to favor Republicans. Those actions were partly offset by California’s gerrymandering.
Then, in April 2026, the Roberts Republicans issued the Callais ruling.
By largely gutting the Voting Rights Act (VRA), Callais will enable Republican states to flip as many as 19 additional majority-minority Democratic congressional districts heretofore shielded by the VRA. Many could even be flipped by energized Republicans prior to the 2026 midterm election - including five seats hurriedly gerrymandered in Florida and Tennessee in May. Minority representation in Congress will plunge as it did during the Jim Crow era.
Preserving Democracy: Countering the Callais Ruling
To sustain hopes for a 2028 trifecta, Democratic states must offset as many of these blue Congressional districts as possible from being flipped by Republicans. Specifically, there are a large number of majority-minority districts in blue states like California. And a number of districts can be redistricted, spreading out Democratic voters to eliminate neighboring Republican districts. Importantly, blue states have engaged in less partisan gerrymandering than Republicans in recent years. Thus, there are as many as 22 Republican districts in blue states such as Colorado and New York that could be flipped in 2027 and 2028. And Virginia may redistrict again. Republicans acknowledge that Democrats could offset all the red-state gerrymandering now underway by 2028.
Gerrymandering these districts to blue, however, will not be easy. Democrats will need to win state legislative majorities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in the 2026 midterm elections, for instance. Moreover, many blue states like New York and Virginia have laws specifically barring gerrymandering that must now be set aside.
The Jim Crow Supreme Court has confronted Democrats with a Hobson’s choice: conduct tawdry gerrymandering that reduces racial representational equality for their minority supporters – or allow Republicans to seize the House of Representatives by default for a decade or more.
Quickly countering Republican gerrymandering is the only pathway to a 2028 trifecta and the opportunity to enact an epochal agenda enabling the Democrats to survive the reapportionment tsunami in 2032.
George Tyler is a former deputy assistant treasury secretary and World Bank official. He is the author of books including Billionaire Democracy and What Went Wrong.
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A Transcontinental Railroad Means a Stronger U.S. Economy
May 23, 2026
Upheaval in international trade over the last few years and the resulting squeeze on Americans’ pocketbooks have highlighted the benefits that Americans receive from having partners and supply chains that are proven and reliable—and the costs that come when that dependability is threatened.
American infrastructure and transportation are critical factors in the equation. The proposed combination of Union Pacific (UP) and Norfolk Southern (NS) railroads is being positioned as part of the answer to American economic resiliency for years to come. Especially significant as North American trade continues to advance American prosperity.
While not always on the front pages, rail freight is in fact a pillar for the U.S. economy. Each year, railroads move about 1.5 billion tons of agricultural products, construction materials, vehicles, energy, and other goods. The U.S. is one of the few developed nations without a coast-to-coast railroad, leaving freight to change hands at congested gateways that add costs and delays.
A report from the Association of American Railroads (AAR) notes that “rail is a major driver of economic activity, generating $233.4 billion in total economic output in 2023.”
Another mainstay of the American economy, perhaps surprisingly, continues to be trade with Mexico. In 2024, over 80 percent of Mexico's total exports were to the United States, and over 40 percent of its total imports were from the United States. Motor vehicle parts, cell phones, industrial equipment, and a multitude of other goods amounted to a record $872.83 billion in trade last year.
As one might expect with a neighbor of that size, rail is a pivotal factor in capturing the full economic benefit of growth in U.S.-Mexico trade and allows American businesses to capture an even greater share of future growth.
In 2023, Union Pacific launched a new eastbound intermodal service connecting Mexican industrial markets with key U.S. Southeast markets such as Florida and North Carolina. The proposed merger with Norfolk Southern will expand these connections along the East Coast, establishing new single-line connections for U.S. distribution hubs across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, connecting 43 states and more than 100 ports.
Opening new American markets to cross-border commerce would give U.S. businesses more direct access to one of the world’s most dynamic trade corridors. American industries would gain improved access to existing trade flows, including inland agricultural producers, Midwest manufacturers, and Southeastern distribution centers.
The operations of a faster, more reliable freight network capitalize on American advantages in infrastructure and logistics. Fewer handoffs and fewer interchange delays mean more reliability and faster delivery times for businesses and consumers. The efficiency is especially significant for small businesses, as it makes their growth more viable.
The improved efficiency is also projected to take an estimated 2.1 million trucks off the road annually and save shippers an estimated $3.5 billion each year — savings that flow through to consumers.
The U.S. Department of Transportation previously forecasted that U.S. freight movement would rise by 30% by 2040. Those projections occurred well before a merger was even discussed, meaning that the benefits will be enhanced by growing investment and demand now predicated on the merger itself.
Macroeconomic gains are built from countless local ones. For communities located along key rail hubs, increased job creation and activity would certainly be a welcome boost. Workers in rural areas and other underserved communities already make up a vital share of the industrial and transportation workforce. These workers bear the brunt of supply chain disruptions, but they also stand to benefit most when systems become faster, cheaper, and more reliable.
Americans now navigating economic uncertainty and pressure on their family budgets from trade disruptions, tariffs, and the effects of war on energy prices could use a healthy dose of stability. The infrastructure and systemic improvements from the realization of a long-sought-after transcontinental railroad stand as a bright spot. And with U.S.-Mexico trade more valuable to American economic interests than ever before, now is the time to push toward measures that promote cooperation and mutual prosperity.
Mario H. Lopez is the President of the Hispanic Leadership Fund, a public policy advocacy organization that promotes liberty, opportunity, and prosperity for all.
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