As President Donald Trump pushed for Republicans around the country to redraw congressional maps to give themselves extra seats, the one state where such a redraw was inevitable was Ohio, where state law required the map be redrawn anyway because the GOP’s previous gerrymander there had not passed with bipartisan support.
But ultimately, Ohio Republicans cut a deal with Democrats, only drawing a slightly more favorable map for themselves that preserved most Democrats’ seats and gives them a chance at holding every seat they currently have. And according to a new Politico report, Trump was caught wildly off guard by this deal because he was overseas at the time.
“On Oct. 20, Jeffries told reporters he would fundraise for a referendum if Ohio passed the new maps. The following day, Jeffries conducted a virtual meeting with prominent Ohio Democrats … in which he made clear he would back a ballot measure,” noted the report. This aligns with the situation in Missouri, where good governance groups have filed for a ballot measure to overturn the gerrymander Republicans passed there this year.
This threat ultimately led Ohio Republicans to cave and negotiate a compromise — and it left national Republicans, including Trump, shocked and caught off guard.
“When news of the compromise leaked late that Wednesday night, National Republican Congressional Committee officials were shocked by what they saw as a betrayal,” said the report. “Other Republicans erupted in fury at the backroom deal that would sacrifice two seats that many in the party thought would be theirs. The makings of another hard-line MAGA revolt against a bipartisan compromise negotiated by establishment Republicans appeared ready to explode. All it might take to kill the deal, many in Ohio thought, was a signal from the White House that a vote for the map would undermine Trump’s agenda.”
“But Trump and his closest advisers were in Busan, South Korea, when the deal was reached, part of a five-day tour of Asia. The White House was alerted only at the ‘eleventh hour’ about the deal, one ally told POLITICO,” said the report. “Even still, Ohio legislative leaders had provided the White House ‘very little information’ about negotiations, according to one national Republican familiar with the discussions,” and Trump was in a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping by the time it went public.”
If Trump had been in the U.S. and paying attention, the Republican source added, he probably would have forced Ohio Republicans to scrap the deal: “We never blessed that, we wanted them to be aggressive.”
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