Veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove is under fire hours before he is set to speak at a major gathering of Republicans in Missouri, Breitbart News has learned, all while his failures on redistricting nationwide become clearer.
Rove, who is scheduled to keynote the Missouri Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner in St. Louis on Saturday night, is a senior adviser nationally to a group called the National Republican Redistricting Trust (NRRT). The GOP redistricting group NRRT, Rove wrote in a 2021 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal announcing his appointment to it, “was formed in response to Democratic efforts organized in 2016 by former President Barack Obama and his attorney general Eric Holder.”
While it sounds valiant, Rove has been largely missing in action throughout the course of redistricting battles nationwide. Several top national Republicans across the party from a variety of viewpoints—both establishment and conservative Republicans—have told Breitbart News that none of them have actually heard from Rove throughout this whole redistricting process period, save for that October 2021 Wall Street Journal oped and an occasional interview on the Fox News Channel.
“Karl Rove has been asleep at the wheel throughout the redistricting process,” one national Republican strategist told Breitbart News.
“It’s clear Karl Rove has lost a step, and it’s costing Republicans all over the country,” a second national GOP strategist added.
Those two are hardly the only people who say Rove is missing from this fight. Governors’ offices, state legislators, and other key GOP figures both at the state and federal levels have all said the same thing: Nobody has heard from him.
The NRRT’s press spokesperson has not replied to a request for comment.
Republicans have fared much worse than they thought they would nationally as redistricting has played out late last year into early this year. It started with Republicans playing it safe in Texas, a state that gained two new congressional districts thanks to population growth over the past decade, and then in the eyes of many Republicans letting Democrats run rampant through blue states with gerrymandering while not taking advantage of as much opportunity in red or purple states. The left, in other words, is going for the jugular with redistricting; the Republicans, on the other hand, are with rare exception playing tiddlywinks.
Democrats stormed through places like Illinois, New York, and elsewhere with brutal gerrymanders eliminating tons of GOP strongholds—while Republicans barely held it together in places like Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, and more.
Notable exceptions for the GOP this cycle have been Tennessee, where Republicans eliminated a Democrat stronghold in Nashville, and Florida—where Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed perhaps the most brutal map for Democrats ever considered, and the state legislature is considering one somewhat as strong. That process is still playing out in the Sunshine State, but as it develops it’s clear Republicans will walk away with a better advantage.
That brings the focus back to Missouri, where a band of conservative Republicans in the state Senate is holding the line filibustering Democrat and GOP establishment attempts to pass a 5-3 map that would give five seats to the GOP and three to the Democrats. The conservatives want a 7-1 map, with seven seats for Republicans and one for Democrats—and the conservatives are filibustering it as late as Friday afternoon, holding the line against a cave to U.S. House Speaker Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
Missouri GOP Sen. Bob Onder, one of the conservatives leading the charge, told Breitbart News as the filibuster was ongoing Friday that he would not relent and give in to Pelosi.
“Around the country Democrat-controlled states are aggressively gerrymandering to eliminate Republican Congressional seats,” Onder said. He continued:
In Missouri, unfortunately, Republicans have promoted the PelosiMap for congressional seats that will give one to two congressional seats to progressive Democrats. Senate leadership has taken the unusual step of calling us into session on Friday, making some of us worry that they may be trying to ‘shove the Pelosi map down our throats.’ The Senate Conservative Caucus and I are committed to fight the Pelosi Map to be sure our congressional map represents the values of Missouri Patriots, not the radical left.
What’s more, the GOP’s front-running U.S. Senate candidate in Missouri—former Gov. Eric Greitens—is refusing to attend the Lincoln Day Dinner with Rove at least in part over Rove’s redistricting failures. In a statement, Greitens bashed Rove for his redistricting failures and referred to how former President Donald Trump last year called Rove a “pompous fool with bad advice.”
“It is no surprise that RINO’s and establishment Republicans have invited Never Trumper Karl Rove to their event this weekend in order to plot against President Donald J. Trump and subvert his American First agenda,” Greitens told Breitbart News in a statement. Greitens continued:
President Trump has said Rove is ‘a pompous fool with bad advice and always has an agenda.’ This establishment event proves RINOs are willing to sell out their country to swamp creatures looking to make a quick buck off the movement. Let’s also not forget that Karl Rove was on the team that was tasked to ensure redistricting would not favor Democrats. His absolute failure has led to the current redistricting mess in the Missouri legislature where liberals are trying to gerrymander new districts to hurt conservatives. I was honored to hold an event with over 300 Patriots last weekend in Kansas City. The American First movement is built upon grassroots events where conservatives have a voice, not at meetings where the establishment sits in a circle to congratulate themselves for deceiving the people of Missouri.
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