The Coming Coup

The insurrectionists failed to topple a fair election. But Republican legislators are succeeding at seizing control of how—and if— votes are counted.

- By Ari Berman. Illustrations by Jim Cooke

A week before the ninth anniversary of her son’s murder, Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) discovered that Republicans had radically redrawn her district to oust her from Congress.

A political novice, McBath had become a leading gun control advocate after her 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was shot by a white man in 2012 in an altercation over the volume of rap music Davis was playing. She went on to stage one of the biggest electoral upsets in Georgia’s recent history when, in 2018, she became the first Black person to represent the state’s 6th District, Newt Gingrich’s home turf for 20 years. Her victory exemplified Democratic inroads in formerly red states like Georgia, and the new power being exercised by communities of color in the rapidly diversifying South. But those gains are quickly being erased by the GOP through a toxic combination of gerrymandering, voter suppression, and election subversion that together pose a mortal threat to free and fair elections.

Georgia is a microcosm of the extreme tactics Republicans are using across the country to entrench power in advance of the midterms. What can appear as a series of seemingly disconnected state-level skirmishes is in fact part of an insidious national strategy that goes far beyond previous efforts to suppress and undermine Democratic influence. Fueled by the Big Lie, this effort picks up where last year’s insurrection left off by putting in place the pieces to steal future elections by systematically taking over every aspect of the voting process.