Obama warns that Republicans want to ‘rig’ next year’s election in horrowing ad

Former President Barack Obama tells voters that “Democracy is on the ballot November 4” ahead of critical vote on Proposition 50.

Former President Barack Obama delivered a harrowing message to voters in a new ad aimed at President Donald Trump and the Republican Party for their efforts to redraw congressional maps in their favor.

Following the controversial passage of a new map in Texas, which gives Republicans a five-seat advantage demanded by Trump ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Obama says, “Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years.”

The ad comes from “Yes on 50,” a campaign in support of Proposition 50, a proposed California law on the ballot for voters on Nov. 4. The ballot initiative would allow the state legislature to redraw its congressional map to counter Republicans’ efforts to keep the majority in Congress and further execute the MAGA agenda of President Trump.

Democrats have vowed to serve as a check and balance on the Trump administration if they were to win back control of either chamber of Congress, including launching investigations into mass layoffs, deportations and major cuts to federal programs and services.

“California, the whole nation is counting on you,” said President Obama, who warned that “Democracy is on the ballot November 4.”

He explained, “With Prop 50, you can stop Republicans in their tracks. Prop 50 puts our elections back on a level playing field, preserves independent redistricting over the long term and lets the people decide.”

Obama’s endorsement of Prop 50 comes as America’s first Black president has become increasingly vocal against Trump’s policies and actions in Washington, D.C.

Obama recently slammed Trump for deploying the National Guard to American cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Memphis–all of which are led by Black mayors.

“When you have a military that can direct force against their own people, that is inherently corrupting,” America’s first Black president said on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast, accusing his successor of politicizing the military.

“I think there is no doubt that a lot of the norms, civic habits, expectations, [and] institutional guardrails that we had — that we took for granted — for our democracy have been weakened deliberately,” said the former president.

The issue of redistricting congressional maps has become a major point of contention between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats accuse Republicans of doing the bidding of Trump and disenfranchising voters in an attempt to keep power, particularly as Trump’s immigration and economic policies remain unpopular with voters, according to national polls.

In Texas, Republicans are fighting several lawsuits that accuse them of racial discrimination. Districts with majority Black and Latino voters–who more traditionally vote for Democrats–were sliced and packed into other surrounding districts, giving Republicans clear advantages. Plaintiffs say the new map in Texas is a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which was established to protect the voting rights of Black and minority voters.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a redistricting case in Louisiana that will determine whether a second majority-Black district is discriminatory against white voters. It also threatens to all but kill the Voting Rights Act, which was passed into law in 1965.

“This case implicates not just the Voting Rights Act, but anti-discrimination statutes, more broadly, in terms of whether we are allowed to look seriously at the issue of race in this country in trying to remedy the harms that discrimination causes,” Megan Keegan, a staff attorney for ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, told theGrio.

Noting that the VRA has been used for decades to preserve “opportunity districts” for Black voters, Keegan added, “Without that kind of a statue where we are holding states to the promise of equal and fair representation, there is no reason to believe that those kinds of opportunity districts will continue to exist without the Voting Rights Act and and all that it does to help keep them available.”