David Graham

The result is we have maps where even though this state is in North Carolina is fairly closely divided between Republicans and Democrats.

Republicans hold near super majorities in both houses of the state legislature, and they have a huge advantage in the U.S.

House delegation as well.

It's happened in a bunch of ways, and it's been interesting to see the ways in which Trump has justified deploying military in Los Angeles.

Initially, it was to support ICE operations.

Then in Washington, D.C., the claim was that out of control crime required the use of the National Guard, even though crime was at the time and continues to drop in D.C.,

More recently, we've seen as Trump threatens or, in fact, does deploy federal law enforcement and also the National Guard in other cities, the focus has shifted back towards immigration.

So on the one hand, that achieves a goal for him.

But it also gets Americans used to the idea of armed troops in the streets as something that is not a totally foreign scenario, not totally unheard of.

And that's important going into the elections.

If you try to deploy lots of the military in, say, late October 2026, it's going to raise a lot of fuss and a lot of attention.

But if people are already accustomed to that,

It won't be something new.

And I think that's a concern that a lot of the election experts I talked to had.

There is specifically a federal law that bans sending armed men in the language to any election facilities unless there is an actual active rebellion.

But there are ways to get around that.

If you already have troops in the street or if you already have a strong presence of, say, ICE agents in the streets, you're not sending them to polling areas.

You're not specifically interfering with the election, but you may have some of the same effect.

And I think that effect is also worth parsing a little bit.

On the one hand, there is a question of intimidation.