You're not going to hear what he really thinks while he's spewing happy talk on their propaganda network, but Rove admitted the latest attempt by Republicans to rig the midterms in their favor may come back to bite them.
Republicans have been getting beaten badly in elections across the country, or even if they're winning, there have been huge swings in Democrats' favor. As Brookings reported:
In every special election held to date, Republicans lost ground compared to their 2024 results, even in districts they won. Conversely, Democrats improved upon their 2024 vote shares in every race they won. [...]
To date, 12 state legislative seats have flipped from Republican to Democratic control in special elections. When accounting for Democratic gains in the 2025 off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey, the total number of flips from Republican to Democratic is 30. By contrast, no seats have flipped in the opposite direction. Democrats have overperformed by 4.5 percentage points on average.
If these races are viewed alongside the substantial 2025 Democratic wins in New Jersey and Virginia, the midterm outlook appears favorable for Democrats. The party picked up seats in Congress and state legislatures, won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and secured a mayoral race in Waukesha, Wisconsin—a city where Republicans had won for years.
Rove knows this, and he hedged a bit on how bad things might be, but did warn that diluting safe seats in Florida might now work out so well for Republicans this year:
As Florida waits for the new congressional map proposal from Gov. Ron DeSantis ahead of next week’s Special Session, veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove is the latest to warn of potential adverse consequences for his side.
“Right now, the Democrats are ahead. If Florida moves like it can, the Republicans will at least be even. But there’s a risk there, because what they’re going to do is they’re going to have to take Republican votes out of Republican districts and put them into Democrat districts, and that’s going to lower the numbers for some incumbent Republicans, and they may lose a seat or two,” Rove on “Fox & Friends.”
Rove’s cautions are part of a growing chorus of people who speculate that a new map could hurt Republicans more than it could help them, including current incumbent U.S. Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart, Carlos Giménez, Greg Steube and Daniel Webster who fear that their safe seats could be in play.
Republican consultant Alex Alvarado wrote in an analysis for the Civic Data and Research Institute that, according to modeling, aggressive redistricting would raise the number of competitive seats from four to seven but wouldn’t give Republicans any net gain.
Here's to hoping Florida isn't the only state there this comes back to bite them in the ass.
