Barack Obama is going after President Donald Trump’s all-important congressional majority as the White House attempts to embroil him in its bizarre Russia conspiracy.
The former president is headlining a fundraiser next month in Martha’s Vineyard that will benefit the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group fighting the GOP’s effort to maintain control of Congress next year by redrawing the district maps for Ohio and Texas, Politico reported.
The Republicans’ House majority is razor thin, and lawmakers will face a restless electorate in next year’s midterms.
Those dynamics prompted Trump to call for “a simple redrawing” of Texas’ political map that would allow Republicans to pick up as many as five seats in a state where they already enjoy a five-seat advantage, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Similarly, Republicans want to redraw Ohio’s political districts so they would only need to win about 55 percent of statewide votes to hold 80 percent of the state’s congressional seats, the Ohio Capital Journal reported.
Democrats have threatened to retaliate against the proposed redistricting—which some constitutional law scholars say is illegal—and are funding political campaigns and legal challenges aimed at stopping the redistricting, also known as partisan gerrymandering.
Obama’s appearance next month will benefit one of the main groups spearheading those efforts, the NDRC, which was founded in 2017 by Obama’s former Attorney General Eric Holder. Obama’s office did not immediately return a request for comment from the Daily Beast on Thursday.
Holder and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will also be on hand for the fundraiser, according to an invitation obtained by Politico. It will be just the second time this year that Obama has helped raise money for Democrats.
Last week, he appeared at a fundraiser for the Democratic nominees for governor of Virginia and New Jersey.
Other than that, Obama—who remains beloved in many Democratic circles—has kept a relatively low profile during Trump’s second term, even as Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has accused the former president of masterminding a “treasonous conspiracy” over his administration’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Earlier this week, he issued a rare statement against the White House, saying, “The bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.”
Since leaving office, Obama has consistently supported Holder’s efforts to limit partisan gerrymandering.
His first fundraiser after his presidency ended was for the NDRC, as was his first fundraiser after the 2020 election. In 2023, he hosted an event that raised $1.5 million for the group, according to Politico.
Generally speaking, it’s up to each state’s legislature to decide how the state will draw its own political map. Some states keep the process in the hands of lawmakers, while others have created special commissions to draw political districts.
The maps, however, cannot violate the Constitution or the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Nationwide, Republicans already enjoy a 16-seat advantage in Congress, according to the Brennan Center. What that means is that Democrats need to win far more votes just to hold the same number of seats as Republicans.
But Congress could outlaw partisan gerrymandering if it wanted to, and in fact came close to doing so in 2022.
The Freedom to Vote Act passed the House but stalled in the Senate, where lawmakers were two votes shy of modifying the chamber’s archaic filibuster rules to allow the bill to advance to an up-or-down floor vote.
