President Donald Trump's administration is following a plan mapped out by Project 2025 to intentionally create a blind spot in government data that could skew elections toward Republicans, a new report claimed Friday.
The president disbanded the Census 2030 Advisory Committee early in his second term and then slow-rolled an initiative established by the former President Joe Biden's administration to add a new survey question on race and ethnicity, and those moves coupled with a Supreme Court case that could roll back the Voting Rights Act, experts told Talking Points Memo.
Trump-led efforts to redraw congressional maps could also greatly diminish the power of non-white voters
“The Trump Administration’s delay in implementing SPD 15 is the latest in its efforts to undermine the accuracy and utility of our nation’s nonpartisan data — and this is troubling,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director at the National Redistricting Foundation. “It is not a coincidence that this delay is happening at a time when Republicans across the country are working overtime to pass gerrymanders that silence millions of voters, particularly voters of color.”
Project 2025 specifically targeted the Biden-era Statistical Policy Directive 15, or SPD 15, which was intended to be an update to how federal agencies collect standardized race and ethnicity data.
“A new conservative Administration should take control of this process and thoroughly review any changes,” the conservative blueprint's authors wrote in Project 2025. “There are concerns among conservatives that the data under Biden Administration proposals could be skewed to bolster progressive political agendas.”
Increasing racial diversity has heavily influenced redistricting across the country, and SPD 15 was intended to give policymakers a better understanding of the underlying demographics in congressional districts, but the president's move to stall its implementation and his efforts to change the maps to benefit Republicans have created a sense of alarm.
“Fair political representation, access to government services, and effective enforcement of civil rights laws all depend on this accurate census count," said Sara Rohani, assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
