White House aides are serving up a scapegoat to blame if Republicans get hammered in the midterms, and they’ve settled on the mastermind behind the GOP’s redistricting plan.
Republican operatives privately say the real problem is President Donald Trump himself – he started a war with Iran in an election year, prices went up, and voters turned on the party – but aides know they can’t say that publicly or to his face, sources told Wired.
“Clearly it’s the president’s fault,” one operative told Wired’s Inner Loop newsletter.
Instead, sources say attention has turned to James Blair, the White House deputy chief of staff and political strategist who ran turnout strategy for Trump’s 2024 campaign and came back to lead the midterm effort.
Blair’s signature move was pushing several states to redraw their congressional maps early. Even accounting for the Iran war, Republicans expected the plan to net roughly 10 to 15 House seats, as long as Trump’s 2024 coalition turned out again.
When Virginia’s top court blocked Democrats from redrawing their own maps to keep pace, Blair celebrated on X: “Lord grant me humility.”
Five months later, the plan is backfiring, as forecasters now see some of the newly drawn seats favoring Democrats. The Cook Political Report rates Florida’s redrawn 25th district, just south of Fort Lauderdale, as “Lean Democrat.” The Congressional Leadership Fund, aligned with House Republicans, has pulled its money out of the race.
Even Texas is wobbling. Cook now rates GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz’s race in the 15th district a “tossup.”
Blair’s allies call the criticism grossly unfair. They say he couldn’t have foreseen the Iran war or the scandals involving Trump officials that wrecked his planning. He still appears to have the confidence of Trump and chief of staff Susie Wiles, and he flew on Air Force One to two rallies in the past week. That suggests any blame he gets may be largely symbolic.
“The President, our partners in the House and Senate, and I remain focused on winning in November,” Blair said in a statement.
White House spokesperson Danielle Alvarez dismissed the sources as “self-serving opportunists focused on themselves.”
Aides concede that much of the scapegoating is preemptive. Expectations are so low that if Republicans hold the Senate, one source said, Blair will be “seen as a savior.”
But Blair openly owned the House strategy, Wired reported, and he “may be walked to the gallows with that same rope.”
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