Democrats’ Redistricting Efforts Must Focus on January 2029 to Avoid a Trump Coup

In the redistricting wars Republicans started in Texas, Democrats have focused on the wrong date. Every elected official and talking head jumping on the bandwagon points to November 2026.

Instead they must focus on January 2029. Specifically, January 3, 2029.

Under the Twentieth Amendment, the term of representatives elected in 2026 will end at noon and those elected in 2028 will immediately begin. Three days later - January 6, 2029 - those new members of Congress will count the electoral votes for president.

If Democrats do not hold a majority in the House or Senate on that day, American democracy could very well die.

We all remember what happened on January 6, 2021. While millions of MAGA have rewired their own brains to believe the violent thugs storming the U.S. Capitol were patriotic protestors, most of America knows what it saw. An insurrection. A coup. A blade that pierced the skin above democracy’s heart.

To this day, the lawsuit I filed to bar Donald Trump from the ballot remains the only case holding him to account that even made it to trial.

But lost amid images of chemical clouds shrouding our nation’s capitol was what happened inside before insurrectionists crashed through the windows and doors. Senators and representatives had already begun objecting to Joe Biden’s victory. Despite courts across the country tossing Trump’s challenges, his Republican pawns in Congress tried to overturn the election.

Even after the violent mob assaulted police officers, sought to hang the Vice President, and ransacked a sacred building, six senators and more than one hundred and twenty representatives voted to reject Arizona’s vote for Biden. Even more objected to Biden’s win in Pennsylvania.

Critically, two of those senators had just been seated. It was the first official action for many newly elected representatives, including Lauren Boebert from my home state of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia. Had Trump’s militia not interrupted, even more would have voted with them.

Since then, the Republican Party has only prostrated itself further to Trump. It seems like a daily capitulation challenge watching his cabinet and members of Congress kissing the ring at the center of his over-sized ass. Those that do not adore him as a deity have been cowered by fear. After all, with one social media post he can not only ruin their careers, but have their lives threatened and families put in danger. Just ask MTG.

Can you imagine they’d cross him over an issue he views as existential? If he thought a new Democratic president would finally hold him accountable? Of course not.

While the Electoral Count Reform Act signed by Biden makes objections more difficult, it still only requires a fifth of each chamber to sign an objection. Neither that nor the supposedly narrower grounds for objection should be much of a hurdle for a GOP caucus willing to bend reality around its conspiracy theories.

And that is why Democrats cannot let off the gas in their redistricting efforts. Republicans certainly won’t in states like Missouri and Ohio. Even after Indiana Republicans rebuffed Trump, Democrats should continue redistricting efforts in blue states across the country. Even if maps cannot be changed for the 2026 election, they can be put in place for the life-and-death struggle that will be on the ballot in 2028.

That means J.B. Pritzker should not use Indiana’s temporary MAGA apostasy as an excuse to back out of revamping Illinois maps.

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That means states like New York and Colorado need to work today to protect American’s tomorrow.

That means Maryland and Virginia have to push forward with plans to redraw congressional lines.

Winning in November 2026 would be cathartic and create a significant roadblock to Trump’s continued autocratic remodel. But the real test comes more than two years later. If Democrats have not put themselves in position to win as many congressional seats as possible, then they will have put our entire country in peril.

Mario Nicolais is General Counsel for The Lincoln Project. Follow him on Substack, on Bluesky: @MarioNicolais.bsky.social or on Twitter/X: @MarioNicolaiEsq. Read the original column here.

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