The Republican Party currently controls the House of Representatives and has enough seats in the Senate to block any legislation that requires more than a simple majority vote. And yet this party, whose policies are deeply unpopular, only represents a minority of the people in this country. Many in the GOP have their elected positions because the party controls rural states and/or has gerrymandered districts to keep its representatives in power. In addition, Republicans have engaged in voter suppression (on top of the gerrymandering) and blatantly continue these egregious efforts as the election draws near.
If you look at a map of the U.S. based on senators, you will find that most states where the Republicans have seats—apart from Texas and Florida—are less populous, and many are considered part of rural America. Wyoming—a state dominated by ranch land—has two senators for a population of less than six hundred thousand, while California has two senators for thirty-nine million people. I am not questioning the constitutional structure here, just pointing out the vast disparity in the people represented by Republican and Democrat senators. The Democrats represent 57% of the population based on their 49 Senate seats, whereas Republicans represent just 43% based on their 47 seats, and the latter has not represented a majority since 1996 (and then just barely).
Republicans in the House of Representatives also tend to preside over less populous rural districts, though through gerrymandering, they have been able to claim a fair number of urban areas as well. The House Democrats represent 56% of the population based on their 211 seats, with Republicans only representing 44% despite having the majority of seats at 220. So the number of seats that the GOP has in both houses is at odds with the number of people they represent, clearly making them a minority party. It should also be noted that Donald Trump lost the popular vote in the last two elections, and only won in 2016 because of the electoral college system and a very narrow margin.
It does not help that many of the Republican policies are not in sync with the sentiments of the general population, such as abortion, gun control, healthcare, worker’s rights, and more. This party has less than a majority supporting them, and yet they are pushing an agenda that is increasingly unpopular. To make matters worse, the GOP has actively been involved in voter suppression activities, from gerrymandering to purging the rolls to limiting access to voting, and more, with some of these activities coming only shortly before the current election.
Gerrymandering has long been a fact of life for the Republican Party, particularly once Project Red Map tried to redefine the makeup of the state governments. This is covered quite well in David Daley’s book Rat F**ked, but to give a brief explanation, it started after Obama was elected in 2008. Many in the GOP felt that he would bring the “Liberal-pocalypse” to the country, and they countered by turning their attention to rigging the system in their favor. They determined that they could inject relatively small funds into successfully winning seats in state Congressional campaigns and creating Republican majorities in the legislative bodies at that level. They would then gerrymander the districts to give the GOP an advantage at the federal level. This plan worked out quite well, and states like Texas, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and more (you can see a map at this link), secured a majority of Republican representatives not aligned with the makeup of the population.
Along with gerrymandering, the Republicans have been cutting access to voting going back to the 2020 election, directly linked to debunked voter fraud claims by former President Trump. Leading up to the presidential race that year, he started to amplify his false narrative about widespread fraud, which piled onto his previous assertions from 2016 that elections are rigged. He claimed, with no proof, that early voting and mail-in voting led to many instances of cheating. Since then, Republicans have made many attempts to reduce access to mail-in voting and limit the times for the polls to be open early. They have also thwarted attempts to send out registration forms for mail-in voting and have attacked efforts to bolster voter registration.
For registration, recent claims by the GOP have asserted that this activity will lead to illegal aliens and others not eligible to vote getting on the voter rolls. The problem with that assertion is that it ignores the fact that there are many systematic checks in place for this. If somebody registers to vote who is here illegally or is a non-citizen, the system should kick them out when the form is processed. Sure, some might make it through due to clerical and/or bureaucratic errors, but there is no substantive evidence that this has led to any widespread fraud.
There are even more recent instances of Republicans acting in bad faith and carrying out activities that clearly demonstrate voter suppression. Texas purged over one million voters from the rolls just recently, shortly before the cut-off for registration. This is referred to as just an administrative action, and perhaps the majority of these were names that needed to be removed (people who have left the state or passed away). But for those whose registration was revoked inaccurately, they have little time to rectify it, and they receive no notice that they have been removed.
Yet another instance in Texas involves embattled Attorney General Ken Paxton raiding the houses of those who were trying to register people to vote. This is primarily focused on the Hispanic organization LULAC, and he claimed with no evidence—as is typical from the Republicans—that they were registering illegal immigrants. Even if they were, as mentioned above, the system should be designed to handle that, and those forms should not be processed. His actions resulted in officers breaking into the house of an 87-year-old woman working for the organization, and yet he has produced no evidence that she did anything wrong.
Moving over to Georgia, they are changing the rules of voting less than two months before the election begins. A highly partisan election board is demanding hand counts of the ballots, even though that is the most inefficient and time-consuming way to process them. By all appearances, this looks like a design to delay the results and cast doubt on them so that they will not get certified if the majority of voters cast their ballots for Kamala Harris.
In addition, the Republicans have installed bad actors across the country into positions with some authority over the election results. They are also trying to get as many watchers as possible into the polling places once voting starts. The goal here is clearly to question any results that are not favorable to the GOP and again put certification in doubt. Fortunately, Democrats are very aware of what is going on, and groups like Democracy Docket are prepared to challenge these actions. But whether that will be enough to stifle Republican efforts at voter suppression remains to be seen.
This is really an unfortunate situation we find ourselves in when one party is doing everything it can to thwart free and fair elections while at the same time claiming there is widespread voter fraud despite a complete lack of evidence. Interestingly enough, The Heritage Foundation—the group responsible for the far-right-wing dystopian vision of government known as Project 2025—investigated voter fraud and could come up with no significant instances where it impacted an election at any level. That seems pretty damning to the claims of Trump and the Republicans, but it has not dissuaded them from continuing to beat the same drum.
To reinforce the damage they are going, I will reiterate that this party only represents a minority of the country’s population, primarily appealing to white males. Their policies are unpopular, they accomplished very little during the time that they held the House of Representatives, and people are growing increasingly dissatisfied with them as a governing party.
The answer in this case is a simple one: get out and vote. I know that may sound contradictory, seeing as I just pointed out above the voter suppression efforts by the Republicans. But we need to do as Glen Kirschner says, vote in numbers that are “too big to rig, too real to steal.” And we need to be sure that we vote in the state elections and cast ballots against the GOP members that continue to attack our democracy while also attempting to cancel our voting power at the polls. This party does not represent the majority sentiment in the country, and they should not have the power that they currently do, nor should they be allowed to rig the elections in their favor. We can turn that around by showing up to vote and casting our ballots for those dedicated to supporting a Free and Democratic country.