Letters from an American
· collected 2026-09-03 · by Heather Cox Richardson
commentary
A number of pundits, especially Republican pundits, interpreted Trump’s win in 2024 as a permanent political realignment proving that post–World War II liberalism was dead.
asserted
liberalism → interpret → realignment
That conviction appeared to help feed Trump’s insistence that he had won a “landslide” and had a “mandate” to enact draconian policies.
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he → appear → policies
Skeptics disagreed with this interpretation, noting that Trump’s victory in the popular vote was small— more people voted for someone else than for him— and that the 2024 election appeared to be determined by inflation and the pandemic, two things that had little to do with political positions.
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that → disagree → positions
Rather than being an embrace of a political ideology, it appeared the swing toward Trump had more to do with anti-incumbent feeling, especially over inflation.
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swing → appear → inflation
Still, after the 2024 election, hopeful Republicans set out to redistrict states like Texas to try to guarantee they would hold on to control of Congress after the 2026 election.
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they → set → election
They redrew districts based on the idea that what they thought was a new coalition would last, banking especially on Hispanic voters continuing to cast their ballots for Republicans.
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voters → redrew → Republicans
With that expectation, they created gerrymanders that shaved their margins thinner than they had been before the redistricting.
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they → create → redistricting
And then, in the elections of November 2025, dramatic gains by Democrats across Texas made some observers wonder if the gerrymandering of Texas hadn’t been a “dummymander,” teeing districts up for Democrats in a blue wave.
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gerrymandering → make → wave
After the election, G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers noted that the anti-incumbent feeling had turned against the Republicans and that voters were even more strongly opposed to Republicans than they had been against Democrats in 2024.
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they → note → 2024
He explained that by then, Republicans had lost an average of 25 points of support from the very voters they were counting on to create their new coalition: young people, nonwhite voters, and working-class/lower-income voters.
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they → explain → coalition
And then, in a special election on January 31, 2026, voters flipped a seat in the Texas Senate from Republican to Democratic in a historically Republican-dominated district in Tarrant County.
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voters → flip → County
Democrat Taylor Rehmet, an Air Force veteran and machinist, defeated right-wing Republican Leigh Wambsganss for a seat that Republicans have held since the early 1990s.
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Republicans → defeat → 1990s
Robert Downen of Texas Monthly noted that in the final days of the campaign, the Wambsganss campaign spent $310,000 while Rehmet spent nothing, and Daniel Nichanian of BoltsMag posted that overall, Wambsganss spent nearly $2.2 million more than Rehmet in the campaign.
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Wambsganss → note → campaign
Both Texas governor Greg Abbott and Trump himself publicly supported Wambsganss.
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Abbott → support → Wambsganss
Voters flipped a district that Trump won by 17 points in 2024 to Rehmet, electing him by a 14.4-point margin.
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Trump → flip → margin
Liz Crampton of Politico noted that “Republicans are in full-out panic mode” after the election, especially over the swing of Hispanic voters toward Rehmet.
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Republicans → note → Rehmet
Republican consultant Mike Madrid referred back to the newly gerrymandered maps and the voting patterns of young Hispanic men when he told Crampton: “They’ve banged three of these five new Republican seats on a demographic that Democrats were never able to turn out for 30–40 years.”
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Democrats → refer → years
Now, though, they had turned toward Democrats as Trump’s arrests, detentions, and deportation policies had “angered and upset them.”
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arrests → turn → them
In the wake of the election, Trump immediately began talking about nationalizing voting in the country, despite the provisions in the U.S. Constitution establishing that states, not the federal government, are in charge of elections.
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states → begin → elections
“If you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government in elections,” Trump said during a press conference at the White House in early February.
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Trump → think → February
“I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway.”
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government → know → them
Trump’s allies began talking about rigging the election by sending armed officers to the polls.
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allies → begin → polls
Steve Bannon said on his podcast: “You’re damn right, we’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November.
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ICE → say → polls
We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again.
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you → go → country
And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.”
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election → whine → pram
Since then, the administration has worked hard to take over the midterm elections, but so far everything it has tried has been blocked by the courts or failed in Congress.
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it → work → Congress
It is 0–23 in its effort to take over state voter data with the apparent plan of running it through a program designed to make sure noncitizens aren’t receiving welfare benefits for which they’re not eligible, a process that mistakenly flags citizens as noncitizens with a failure rate of at least 14%.
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that → take → %
Courts also blocked Trump’s attempt to use the United States Postal Service (USPS) as a gatekeeper to stop ballots that the federal government decides shouldn’t be delivered even though state agencies determine they should be.
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they → block → ballots
We learned yesterday that, despite court orders, the administration’s plan to use the USPS to impose federal control on elections has continued.
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plan → learn → elections
It has rushed into place a system a whistleblower warns would throw out entire batches of up to 10,000 ballots if a single one gets rejected.
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one → rush → ballots
This is a deliberate attempt to skew the midterm election.
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This → skew → election
An analysis by Charles Stewart III of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Election Data and Science Lab shows that Democrats vote by mail more than Republicans.
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Democrats → show → Republicans
In 2024, 37% of Democrats voted by mail, while only 24% of Republicans did.
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% → vote → Republicans
Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters yesterday that he is not ruling out sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the polls.
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he → tell → polls
“The only reason why we would be at polling places is if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down,” Mullin said.
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Mullin → be → that
That’s their job…if we’re serving a warrant we will be where we need to be.”
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we → ’ → warrant
Maya Yang of the Guardian notes that Mullin’s threat flies in the face of federal law, which prohibits armed agents from “any place where a general or special election is held.”
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election → note → place
Last night, in Tarrant County, Texas, county commissioners tried an even cruder way of rigging the election.
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commissioners → try → election
As Cecelia Lenzen of the Texas Tribune reported, they voted 3–2 along party lines to get rid of 92 of the polling sites the county had in 2022 before the midterm election.
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county → report → election
In 2022 there were 316 election sites; the Republican commissioners cut that number to 224.
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commissioners → be → 224
…and 19 more, not listed.
