GOP's tremendous own goal likely to haunt them in the midterms and beyond: expert

The Republican Party seems to be winning the redistricting wars as the 2026 midterm elections approach, but a legal expert on Sunday compared the GOP's efforts to an own goal that will likely haunt them going forward.

So far, the Republicans have gained about seven seats in Congress through mid-cycle redistricting as states like Texas, Louisiana, and Tennessee have redrawn their maps. The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia estimates the party could gain as many as 10 total seats, even as Democrats attempt to counter the GOP's moves with new maps of their own.

The GOP began its mid-cycle redistricting efforts in an attempt to blunt Democrats' efforts to take the majority in the House of Representatives after the election, which some experts have said could be the end of the second Trump presidency. Democrats have said they will impeach Trump "on day one" if they take the House majority.

Michael Popok, a lawyer and host of "The Legal AF Podcast," warned during a new episode on Sunday that the GOP's redistricting efforts could also haunt the party going forward because it revealed an "openly racist" strategy that has destroyed the party's brand with some voters.

"Look at the damage you've done to your brand by being so openly racist," Popok said.

One group of voters the GOP's policies seem to have turned off are Hispanic and Latino voters, who swung rightward toward Trump in historic fashion during the 2024 election. Since then, swaths of Hispanic and Latino voters appear to have flipped back to supporting Democrats, according to public polls.

"This doesn't win the game," Popok said. "All this does is reveal that you are a demented, depraved, racist party. And not everybody in it. I'm not here to malign people who voted for him, because many of them regret having done so."

"It's not like they're going to be able to grab the 40 seats to counteract the number of seats that the Democrats are projected to obtain," he continued.