Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith cover three sites of Republican pushback against the administration's election interventions: the Missouri dispute over which congressional map governs November, Justice Department election monitors in Wyoming, and a Supreme Court brief from 38 current and former election officials, several from deep-red states, arguing the mail-ballot rule cannot be implemented in time for the midterms.
Mentioned:
“von Glahn v. Hoskins,” No. SC101805 (Supreme Court of Missouri, en banc, September 3, 2026)
“Order finding the secretary of state in civil contempt and purging the contempt,” in von Glahn v. Hoskins, No. SC101805 (Supreme Court of Missouri, en banc, September 10, 2026)
“Brief of amici curiae 38 current and former state and local election officials,” in United States Postal Service v. California, No. 26A305 (Supreme Court of the United States, September 9, 2026)
“Justice Department to Conduct Election Monitoring in Florida and Wyoming Primary Elections” (Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, August 18, 2026)
Maggie Mullen, “Gov. Gordon concerned by ‘aggressive’ DOJ election observers during Wyoming's primary election” (WyoFile, August 28, 2026)
This is an edited transcript of an episode of “Executive Functions Chat.” You can listen to the full conversation by following or subscribing to the show on Substack, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Jack Goldsmith: Good morning, Bob.
Bob Bauer: Good morning, Jack.
As the fall congressional elections approach, there’s growing evidence that President Trump and his allies’ efforts to shape the midterms, from attacks on mail voting to aggressive gerrymandering, are meeting resistance even from some Republican quarters. Does this reflect growing Republican wariness, as polls show dissatisfaction with Trump’s performance? Does it reflect the practical problem that ballots have been printed or mailed, and that states are running out of time to alter election procedures? Or is it something else? That’s what we’re going to discuss. And so why don’t we start off by, Bob, just telling us what the main elements are of this Republican resistance, which might not be widespread, but it definitely exists.
Yes, we’re seeing some of it. Just how pervasive it’s going to turn out to be, and whether it’s going to intensify before November, is an open question. But we’ve seen it in a remarkable case in Missouri, having to do with an attempt to force a gerrymandered 2025 map onto the November ballot, to govern voter choice in that election. We see it in Republican resistance to the way that the Civil Rights Division is deploying and instructing observers for the primary elections here.
And we can expect to see those observers again in the general election in the fall. And we can see it also in an amicus brief that was filed in the election mail case, now pending before the Supreme Court, by some 38 current and former state and local election officials from some very red states. And so in all of those cases, we see pushback from Republican quarters, in different ways, in different forms, to the way that this denialist program has been launched on the part of President Trump and his allies.
Okay, let’s start with the Missouri case. What’s going on there?
There you have an action by the Missouri State Supreme Court to block a Secretary of State from engaging in some very aggressive legal maneuvering to ensure the gerrymandered map was used for the November elections. That map was adopted in 2025. However, the court held that a referendum on that map was going to go on the ballot, and the effect of that referendum is to make it impossible to use that map until the voters have rendered a judgment on it. And that would mean that a 2022 map, not the one Republicans prefer, would control in this year’s election.
And that court is a court that is dominated by a Republican majority. That is to say, five of the justices were appointed by Republican governors. So that’s a very interesting case, because that was a unanimous ruling.
And when it went up to the Supreme Court of the United States, because the supporters of the 2025 gerrymandered map fought it up to the Supreme Court of the United States, twice the court turned them back. Justice Kavanaugh, in one instance, without even referring the denial of the application for relief to the full court, and then on referral to the full court a second time as well.
And what was the primary legal ground for not allowing the 2025 map to prevail?
The question was whether or not the referendum that was to be put before the voters by petition; whether that referendum actually operated to disqualify the use of the 2025 map, whether it in effect suspended that 2025 map and required an earlier 2022 map to be used. And the court was unanimous in ruling that the referendum had to go onto the ballot with that effect. That is to say, that the 2025 map could not be used until the voters made a decision about it.
And that was, of course, in direct opposition to what the Secretary of State, a Republican, had concluded. But what was most interesting is that the court, again unanimously, found that the Secretary of State in that case had engaged in some very sketchy behavior to attempt to, in effect, get his scheme across the finish line. And they were pretty critical about it.
And when all was said and done, his behavior landed him in a contempt proceeding before the Missouri State Supreme Court. They found him in contempt. They concluded that once he’d relented and agreed that their earlier ruling stood and that the 2022 map was going to be used, he had essentially purged himself of the contemptuous conduct. So there were no further consequences to him, but they actually found him in contempt.
Okay. What about the second matter, involving the Civil Rights Division? What’s going on there?
So the Department of Justice does send monitors out to observe elections—I want to put the emphasis on observation—to determine, for example, whether or not elections are being conducted in a way that appears to comply with the requirements, say, of the Voting Rights Act and other federal election laws. And remarkably, observers that went out to Wyoming, reddest of red states, ran into significant conflicts with Republican officials in that state, because they engaged in behavior that really doesn’t fall under the category of traditional observation.
They were interviewing voters. They wanted to examine equipment. Long and short of it is, they were engaged in what appeared to be some kind of invasive audit or pre-investigative activity. The governor of the state, a Republican, said that this conduct was aggressive and disruptive. And local officials objected equally strongly and said that it was an intrusion into the state electoral administrative process that was unacceptable. So that’s the second case.
And where does that stand right now?
That stands in, essentially, objection rendered by the state, and the Department of Justice will or will not act on that objection in conforming its conduct to it, in other states or in Wyoming, in the future.
Okay, how about the amicus brief in the postal case? Was this filed by red states only, or is it a brief involving lots of red states?
It involves a lot of red states. Reading from the [complete] list: Kentucky, North Dakota, South Dakota, Georgia, New Hampshire, Kansas. [Those six are the states’ secretaries of state—including Georgia’s Brad Raffensperger—joined by Utah’s lieutenant governor, Deidre Henderson, who serves as that state's chief election officer. In the brief’s words: “Many Amici are Republicans. Several were elected to their offices on the Republican line, and several serve in Republican majority jurisdictions.”] Thirty-eight, as I said, former and current state and local election officials. They didn’t take the position that this final postal rule (that would put the Postal Service for the first time in the position of controlling and potentially objecting to the transmission of mail ballots); they didn’t take the position on the merits that the rule was necessarily illegal if implemented for a future election. But they took the position very strongly that this rule could not be implemented for the 2026 election. They said it would be effectively impossible to comply with without major confusion for voters and election officials. It would be disruptive to the electoral process. So that’s actually quite remarkable as well.
So Bob, what’s going on here? I mean, maybe there are a lot of things going on, but you spend a lot of time, I think, with state and local officials, election officials who have to do the hard and complicated work of running these federal elections, including in red states. So can you just give us a general sense of what the sentiment is among those officials about some of the Trump administration approaches to the fall elections? I mean, is there a general sense? Can you make a generalization about what officials in red states think about this, or is it varied?
Well, it varies, in one sense in that there are certainly some red state officials who support the administration’s, if you will, election denialist program. They think the system is flawed and rife with at least the potential for fraud. On the other hand, there are Democratic and Republican officials, and those in the professional election administration community affiliated with both parties, who have had enough of this.
Their job is a very difficult one. They’re under-resourced. They operate under tremendous time pressure and very unforgiving public expectation about how elections are going to go. And they are finding that the attacks on them, on the process—the suggestion that the system is being either maladministered or is outright corrupt—is offensive to them.
Now, what’s going on here? Who’s to say? Part of it is they cannot put up with this when they really are in the final stages of preparing for the election. And when I say final stages—in some states ballots are going out now or have just gone out. Ballots are being printed. I mean, rules are being set for the conduct of this election. So that’s part of it. It’s just a fundamental resistance to having this disruption at this time.
But who is to say what’s working more broadly in the background here; at long last, Trump and his allies on this subject may have just completely overshot the mark. And maybe in the background there’s less tolerance for it, because of the widespread frustration generally reflected in the president’s disapproval ratings, or his approval ratings, widespread dissatisfaction with the way the government is performing, and therefore less tolerance for his preoccupations with these elections. I suspect that is a factor. I can’t prove it.
But this is really significant, because if you’re going to find much more resistance here on a bipartisan basis, that could be very consequential for controversies that are going to almost certainly await us in the remaining two months of the election, on election day, and immediately thereafter.
So just a last question. Could you follow up on that about—I mean, is this the beginning? There are lots of skirmishes going on. We see more and more examples of this. Is this just going to continue to grow between now and November? Is that inevitable? Legal skirmishes about mail-in ballots, about how the election is going to be conducted, about the federal government, through the federal executive branch, through various means, trying to intervene, using its law enforcement discretion in the election. Do you expect to see significantly more examples of this?
I think you’d have to assume that’s the case. You’d hope it wouldn’t be. You can’t be sure. But there’s no reason to doubt it. I mean, Trump was at it again in the so-called midterm convention in Dallas the other day. He’s given a national address on the topic. He’s addressed the party and the nation at the midterms on this topic.
He is preoccupied both with the potential of losing the midterms, and also with his belief that at least some of the reason for that is going to be—if not all of the reason—a fraudulent election system that just prevents Republicans from winning unless Democrats fail to cheat.
So you’d have to think that at least at the federal government level—I’m going to give you one more example here as we close. At the federal government level, their attempts to push on this point are going to be at least constant, if not increasingly intense. The Department of Justice is once again threatening states with criminal investigation and suggesting that some investigations are underway, on some claim that election administration is somehow culpably failing to come to grips with the prospect of fraud. And that’s in a letter that was just again sent out in the last several days.
So this is not letting up at the federal government level. But the resistance may really be building on a bipartisan basis.
Okay, thanks very much.
Thank you.
