'Total chaos': MAGA lawmakers grumble about becoming 'collateral damage' in Trump battle

President Donald Trump's crusade to pressure Republicans to rig election maps in states they control to minimize GOP losses in the House next year is already backfiring on some of the president's supporters in Congress, as Democrats look to retaliate — and those members are already grumbling about it, Michelle Cottle wrote for The New York Times.

The most obvious fallout is California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom responded to Texas Republicans' gerrymander that targets five Democratic seats with his own map that targets five Republicans. Voters will soon decide whether to endorse that plan.

“It’s especially bad happening in the middle of the decade,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley, whose own California district is being dismantled and split into six, all but guaranteeing his exit from Congress if the Newsom map goes through. “What we have right now — this domino effect or this redistricting war of mutually assured destruction — that’s just total chaos.”

Kiley has introduced legislation to prohibit mid-decade redistricting, but it is unlikely to pass because House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is not expected to defy Trump on redistricting matters, and even Kiley's own fellow Republican delegation in California appears unlikely to back it to save their own jobs.

“It’s not up to us here to prescribe all that,” said Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who represents the far north of California, saying he doesn't want federal interference in how states conduct elections. He did, however, say if it were up to him, he'd have advised Trump not to pressure Republicans to rig maps in the first place. “I’d be saying, ‘Look, man, this is just touching off a whole wave of unreliable elections, unreliable districts. Let’s just stand by the product that we have here’” — meaning, Republicans should be defending Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" of tax breaks and Medicaid cuts.

"Of course, as Mr. Trump sees it, any deal that gives him what he wants is a good one," wrote Cottle. "So if, in his quest to gerrymander a few more House seats in red states, some of his members in blue states wind up collateral damage, so be it. And as the president presses for more red states to join the fray, it becomes all the more vivid just how expendable he considers the other members of his political team, no matter how loyal or useful they have been."

All of this comes as other efforts to fight back against Republican gerrymanders move forward; after Missouri passed another map drawing out a Democratic district, momentum is building for a ballot petition that would suspend that map and put it to a vote of the general public.