No, it's not plausible. There are roughly 175,000 precincts in the US and 169,000 active duty Marines.
2026 Election Watch. Races, Tomfoolery, And Other Things
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No, it's not plausible. There are roughly 175,000 precincts in the US and 169,000 active duty Marines.
Under 100,000. And for every one in the field, they need three to four in support roles—same proportion for active duty. Maybe they can deploy half for domestic duties in ostensibly non-combat missions.
But anything like that will trigger active resistance, including legal, political, civil unrest, and possibly armed confrontations due to overreach.
But anything like that will trigger active resistance, including legal, political, civil unrest, and possibly armed confrontations due to overreach.
This misses the point established over the last few elections. It’s not about intimidating everyone. It’s about intimidating a small subset of districts to shave points.
That would actually be a good thing. The democrats aren't doing this because they like gerrymandering. That's a republican obsession.
You sweet summer child. Like they won't find a way to grandfather in any already gerrymandered Republican majority states due to some specious and completely made-up legal "principle."
Grandfathers have a tendency to die off sooner than later. The only way gerrymandering works is if it keeps being adjusted each census -- or more often, as we're seeing of late.
And they’ll keep doing it to ensure a big advantage coming into their races.
Then why not cut out the middleman and declare martial law? If the military is so strongly behind him that they'll stop an election, why wait for 2026? Just put them in the streets now and call it a done deal.
I swear, this is nothing but conspiracy thinking. The enemy is both unassailably strong and incredibly weak at the same time. It makes zero sense and I'm sad to see Ars descend to this kind of crap "thinking".
So you’re saying that there’s no danger of Trump messing with midterm elections in illegal or unethical ways? It’s all conspiracy thinking? Do you know what the insurrection act is?
I'm all for keeping an open mind, but as the saying goes, don't let your brain fall out.
I said no such thing and you know it. Yes, I do think Trump is going to try and mess with the election in illegal and unethical ways. Republicans have been doing that for decades. But what he's going to do is try a bunch of stupid and illegal executive orders. Which are going to fail because the President has zero role in elections. Honestly, I'm much more worried about dipshit Republican Governors than I am about Trump.
But fundamentally, Trump is a coward. When he's been pressed hard by Democratic Governors, he's been forced to stand down with his idiotic National Guard deployments. Considering that he has much more leeway over immigration than he does over elections, I'd expect the outcome of trying to deploy the military in an election to be even worse for him.
You're not wrong about this, but I for one would be far more worried about Trump's enablers at all levels, including Governors. Yes, Trump and those at the higher levels use stupid, ham-fisted tactics which backfire. There are other smarter, less visible people using Trump et al as cover to push forward their agendas silently and effectively.
To use an analogy - you can cheat at Monopoly by stealing money from the bank in plain sight, or you can cheat by using loaded dice.
It would actually be kind of interesting to see how many EVs are held by Democratic Governors vs Republicans ones (assuming each state follow their governor, either through electoral shenanigans or just general tendencies).
The next election might be rendered undemocratic by that unethical and evil force: the electoral college. But we’ve apparently been living with that for a while.
You didn't see the post I was responding to. The premise was the hypothetical where the Supreme Court rules gerrymandering unconstitutional, but grandfathers in existing district boundaries. In that situation they could not "keep doing it."
Who? The Trump administration is run by clowns. Miller may be less visible but he still has to hide behind Trump to get things done. Theil? Other donors? None of them have the authority to mess with elections and would be dependent on Trump to get it done.
You didn’t even look at the link. It is by an Atlantic writer, David graham. The Atlantic is pretty credible. It isn’t something wack like, you know, teen vogue.
So you're relying on someone else to be credible? Maybe trying being credible yourself. And the fact that you're denigrating Teen Vogue tells me all I need to know about your critical thinking skills.
| Governor's Party | Sum of EV |
| Democratic + Democratic-Farm-Labor | 288 |
| Republican | 247 |
| (District of Columbia) | 3 |
| Grand Total | 538 |
you’re not even reading the link. Teen vogue lol, it’s like furry level thinking.
Sneering at Teen Vogue just comes across as ignorant snobbery. This article provides a pretty good summary of what Teen Vogue was up to:
Sure. But all it takes is to tell him something like "Mr. President, this country is sending fentanyl" or "Mr. President, this person said bad things about you" or "Mr. President, we should send troops this city, things are terrible there because of the evil democrats". And that gets you an autopen signature for whatever gets put in front of him.
And? This is pretty much what's going on today. Right now. Happened throughout Trump 1.0 too, the guy has always been ridiculously influenced by the last person who talked to him. Cripes, Fox News says somethings a problem and he gets all worked up about it.
Teen vogue, furries, is your “thing” just bringing up random topics as vague insults or something? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.
What is “furry level thinking” anyway? Super knowledgeable about political and gender theory, with a side of technical acumen? Because that describes a majority of furries I know, lol.
I do not understand furry either. However, there are many interests that I do not "understand". I have no idea how slam into each other while hold an object is fun either.
People took that fixed in the repair sense, but the motherfucker was outright saying fixed as in cheated, bragging.
SCOTUS is going to hear a challenge if there should be grace periods for mail in ballots.
I suspect another 6-3 ruling in favor of the GOP, which will then play into the hands of an almost certain mid term effort to throw into chaos counting mail in ballots.
I suspect another 6-3 ruling in favor of the GOP, which will then play into the hands of an almost certain mid term effort to throw into chaos counting mail in ballots.
I can't originalist argument about how ballots not delivered after election shouldn't be counted, when ballots would take weeks in the colonial era.
Something about being able to have results that night, not to have these initial results from election night be reversed.
I don't think Trump is a plaintiff -- probably will see amicus briefs from his DOJ -- but they're probably carrying his water when they filed the cases which have arrived to this point.
Some of the best news I've heard recently
Doug Jones will enter 2026 Alabama governor’s race
I'm very excited. He was our best senator.
Doug Jones will enter 2026 Alabama governor’s race
I'm very excited. He was our best senator.
That's why they built in the long delay between election day and transfer of office.
Surely someone will point out that if Congress had wanted to prevent people from voting by mail, or prevent the states from counting ballots postmarked on or before election day, they had ample opportunities to make such a law, and that in the United States, the law is meant to be what the law says, not whatever the Executive wants to make up with authority that was never delegated to him.
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Well, clearly, sporkman is intimately more familiar with the meaning of "furry level thinking." More so than any of us. He is the subject matter expert here, so we can defer to his judgment.
What happened? Did they get bought out or something? It's heartwarming to hear they've turned themselves around but I hadn't heard anything about this. Do you have links?
I mean who needs to follow the constitution and all? I fully expect this court to overturn CA's and any other blue-state changes. Because nothing is going to happen to them.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/04/poli...se-trump-backed-congressional-map-in-midterms
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/04/poli...se-trump-backed-congressional-map-in-midterms
You know what, I can be okay with the outcome though not the reasoning.
In order to redraw these maps, they have to take blue districts and splice them up and add them to solidly red districts. In effect, it makes those districts less red.
If they want to do this in an election cycle where a Tennessee special election shifts 13 percent to the left, then I am okay with seeing what it looks like when the Tx GOP defend a whole bunch of R+10 districts.
I understand the legal history but it will never cease to amaze and infuriate me that "It's not racist we just want to rig elections and disenfranchise voters in general" is a real and legitimate legal defense.
Eh, they put up a pretty strong paywall now so I’ve been reading them less but in the time with the leaky paywall it was pretty solid analysis and were widely cited.
So I was having a discussion with a friend today, and he mentioned that Wyoming could be fairly easily flipped to the Democratic column.
Don't believe its? Here are the 2024 Presidential, Senate, and Congressional results, along with the population figures for the state (skipping minor parties).
an interesting aspect here is in the Senate, the Republican candidate won with more absolute votes and more margin than Donald Trump. So I'd say some Wyoming Republicans at least 6000 of them, had a problem they just couldn't get pas with Donald Trump. That in itself is interesting. But more interesting is that while the margins are huge in percentage, they're not that extreme in vote count.
So what would it take to flip Wyoming and get those three sweet Electoral votes and more importantly those two Senators? Around 135,000 votes. Either half of that shifted from the Republican to the Democratic column. So how do you get that many more Democratic votes in Wyoming?
How about retirees from heavily Democratic states moving there? If you're retired, you don't need to have a job and your investments don't care where you live. 100,000 Democrats moving there would make it competitive. 140k would make it leans-Dem. Cheyenne is not that far from civilization (Colorado). Casper is kind of nice, if you like the high, dry country. Jackson is there for the mountain vibe but the prices are unreasonable. In most of Wyoming, land is cheap, so you can build what you want.
Or something he suggested, have military members who lean-Dem register Wyoming as their home state, and vote in Wyoming elections.
But what states would be easier to shift, if your strategy were shoring up swing states instead of switching a red state to a purple?
I figure Georgia all those states have a chance of electing more Democrats in 2026, and some shifts by strategic retirement moves could help. I'd really like to see Georgia become a purple state in the Southeast. Arguably it already is a purple state and its state house is overdue for a flush.
Don't believe its? Here are the 2024 Presidential, Senate, and Congressional results, along with the population figures for the state (skipping minor parties).
| President | Senate | US House | |
| Republican | 192,633 | 198,418 | 184,680 |
| Democratic | 69,527 | 63,727 | 60,778 |
| Republican Margin | 123,106 | 134,691 | 123,902 |
an interesting aspect here is in the Senate, the Republican candidate won with more absolute votes and more margin than Donald Trump. So I'd say some Wyoming Republicans at least 6000 of them, had a problem they just couldn't get pas with Donald Trump. That in itself is interesting. But more interesting is that while the margins are huge in percentage, they're not that extreme in vote count.
So what would it take to flip Wyoming and get those three sweet Electoral votes and more importantly those two Senators? Around 135,000 votes. Either half of that shifted from the Republican to the Democratic column. So how do you get that many more Democratic votes in Wyoming?
How about retirees from heavily Democratic states moving there? If you're retired, you don't need to have a job and your investments don't care where you live. 100,000 Democrats moving there would make it competitive. 140k would make it leans-Dem. Cheyenne is not that far from civilization (Colorado). Casper is kind of nice, if you like the high, dry country. Jackson is there for the mountain vibe but the prices are unreasonable. In most of Wyoming, land is cheap, so you can build what you want.
Or something he suggested, have military members who lean-Dem register Wyoming as their home state, and vote in Wyoming elections.
But what states would be easier to shift, if your strategy were shoring up swing states instead of switching a red state to a purple?
| state | Trump 2024 | Harris 2024 | Trump Margin |
| Wisconsin | 1697626 | 1668229 | 29397 |
| Alaska | 184458 | 140026 | 44432 |
| Nevada | 751205 | 705197 | 46008 |
| Michigan | 2816636 | 2736533 | 80103 |
| Georgia | 2663117 | 2548017 | 115100 |
I figure Georgia all those states have a chance of electing more Democrats in 2026, and some shifts by strategic retirement moves could help. I'd really like to see Georgia become a purple state in the Southeast. Arguably it already is a purple state and its state house is overdue for a flush.