A frenzied redistricting effort ahead of the November elections has reshaped congressional voting districts for millions of Americans, and the process continues in several states. Since President Donald Trump urged Texas Republicans to redraw U.S. House districts last year, Republicans in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee have enacted new maps that could help the party win additional seats in the midterm elections.
Louisiana is expected to join those ranks soon, and Alabama Republicans are appealing a court decision blocking a map they support. So far, Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from their redistricting efforts while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah. Trump hopes the unusual mid-decade redistricting can help Republicans retain control of the closely divided House, despite negative approval ratings and historical tendencies for the incumbent's party to lose seats in the midterms.
The U.S. Supreme Court in April struck down Louisiana's congressional map, which contains two majority-Black districts held by Democrats, as an illegal racial gerrymander. That prompted Republican Gov. Jeff Landry to postpone Louisiana’s May 16 congressional primary until later this summer to allow time for redistricting. The state House is expected to consider a revised congressional map this week that gives Republicans an improved chance at winning one of those two seats.
The Senate already passed a different version of the new map. The two chambers are trying to agree on a redistricting plan before the June 1 end of their legislative session. Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall said he is appealing a preliminary injunction issued Tuesday by a federal judicial panel that prevents the state from using a Republican-drawn House map in the midterm elections.
The judges said the plan, which includes only one majority-Black district, “intentionally discriminated based on race.”
They ordered the state to continue using a court-imposed map containing two districts where Black residents compose a majority or close to it. Both of those seats currently are held by Democrats. The Missouri Supreme Court already has rejected two challenges to a new U.S. House map that gives Republicans an improved chance to win another seat by reshaping a Democratic-held district based in Kansas City.
Judges are to hear arguments Wednesday in a third challenge claiming that no extraordinary circumstances existed for Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe to call lawmakers into a special session on redistricting last year. As early in-person voting began Tuesday in South Carolina's June 9 primaries, the Republican-led state Senate put an end to an effort to redraw the state's congressional districts this year.
A plan previously passed by the House sought to redraw the state's only Democratic-held district to give Republicans a better chance at winning it. But some Republicans senators said it was too late to make any changes. Others expressed reservations that the plan could backfire by adding in too many Democratic voters in districts held by Republicans.
Voting rights groups contend Florida's new congressional districts should be struck down for violating a state ban on intentional partisan gerrymandering. But a state judge on Tuesday declined to issue a preliminary injunction against using the map in the midterm elections. The judge said the plaintiffs hadn't shown their claims of partisanship are likely to succeed.
Voting rights groups said they were quickly appealing the case to a higher court, and would continue pursuing the case all the way to the state Supreme Court, if necessary. A federal court on Tuesday declined to issue a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit contending that Tennessee’s new U.S. House districts are racially discriminatory.
The new Republican-drawn map carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis — a city where more than half of its population is Black — giving Republicans an improved chance to win the state’s only Democratic-held seat. The case is one of several brought against the map that are making their way through the court system.
Officials in multiple states continue to navigate legal challenges as the November elections approach. According to reports, the changes affect millions of voters across the country and could shift the balance of power in the U.S. House.