Supreme Court decision alters 2026 midterm election outlook

Until the recent Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais, prospects for Democratic wins in the midterm elections had been rising. As we have written previously, the fundamental underpinnings of midterm election success, especially for a president with low approval ratings, all pointed to a “blue wave.” Off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia also favored Democrats, as did special elections in 2025 and 2026, where Democrats either won outright or improved their performance substantially. And the mid-decade redistricting battles were a draw until Florida jumped into the fray with a new map, giving Republicans a slight edge in redrawn seats.

The Supreme Court’s decision this week could yield many more Republican districts than the individual state-by-state battles did. But before Democrats panic and Republicans celebrate, both parties should consider the full range of possible consequences of this decision.

How we got here: Interpreting the law

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) was first passed in 1965 and amended several times since. It represented the long-overdue effort to enforce the 15th Amendment’s guarantee of voting rights for all citizens of the United States. Although the amendment states that “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” this right was routinely denied to Black Americans in Southern states for nearly a century after the amendment was ratified. To rectify this longstanding wrong, the Voting Rights Act not only dismantled obstacles to voting but also prohibited all standards, practices, and procedures that denied or limited the right to vote on the basis of race or color. As subsequently amended, the VRA also prohibited practices that diminished the opportunities enjoyed by members of categories of citizens protected by the act to “participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.” Establishing the boundaries of election districts is among such practices.

In its first review of a case brought under the 1982 amendment, the Supreme Court explained that the “essence of a Section 2 claim is that a certain electoral law, practice, or structure interacts with social and historical conditions to cause an inequality in the opportunities enjoyed by black and white voters to elect their preferred representatives.” In plain English, this meant that Black Americans and other protected groups should have the same opportunities as white voters to elect representatives from their own group. This interpretation of the VRA led to the creation of so-called “majority-minority” districts throughout the South, and to some extent in other parts of the country with geographically compact populations of ethnic and racial minorities.

Much depends on what the words “same opportunities” mean. The language of the VRA implies that not only the existence but also the number of districts in which minorities have the chance to elect representatives affects compliance with the law. On the other hand, the law explicitly states it does not establish a right to have members of a protected class elected “in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.” The VRA is not necessarily violated if a racial or ethnic minority makes up 30% of a state’s population but only 15% of its delegation in the House of Representatives or state legislature.

In its Louisiana v. Callais decision, handed down on April 29, the U.S. Supreme Court held that, consistent with the Constitution, the VRA could not require a state’s redistricting plan to create additional majority-minority districts if the state’s plan was already in compliance with the VRA, and that any such requirement violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Although Louisiana could have created two majority-minority districts, the state legislature’s plan created only one. But because nothing in the VRA required them to do this, the lower court’s order to add a second district represented an unconstitutional use of race, according to a majority of Supreme Court justices.

What will this mean for the 2026 elections?

The Supreme Court’s decision has already evoked passionate reactions and will no doubt trigger a tidal wave of legal and constitutional arguments. Critics fear it could signal a wholesale retreat from gains Black Americans have made over the past six decades. But there is a prior issue: What are the decision’s actual effects likely to be? Will it reduce the number of majority-minority districts? One analysis found that up to 12 such seats are at stake across the South. And if it does, will it also reduce the overall number of Democratic seats in the House of Representatives and state legislatures?

Concerning the first question: Much depends on the number of states that respond to the court by convening their legislatures to draw new maps—and whether a state’s decision to eliminate all its majority-minority districts would survive judicial scrutiny. States that have primaries in early or mid-May, where filing deadlines have passed, and early voting has begun, may decide that drawing new districts at this late date is simply imprudent and impractical. In Louisiana, however, Republican Governor Jeff Landry decided to scrap the upcoming primaries in order to give the legislature more time to redraw maps, and other states could follow suit. There are plenty of congressional primaries to come in June, July, and August, and if states can meet in special sessions to change district lines, they can also change filing dates for candidates. When the dust settles on all this maneuvering, the total of majority-minority districts is likely to shrink this year. The states where redistricting in time for the midterms is impractical can take up the issue next year, with additional effects in 2028.

Concerning the second question, most political scientists have concluded that the creation of majority-minority districts worked to the advantage of the Republican Party in the South, even though Democrats overwhelmingly dominate such districts. As the politics of the South changed from Democrats to Republicans, concentrating minority supporters in a handful of districts (commonly known as “packing”) increased Republicans’ chances of winning the remaining non-majority-minority districts by reducing the number of Democratic voters there.

The complexities of redistricting

There are a few hard and fast rules of redistricting. Opponents of gerrymandering call for districts to be contiguous and compact and to respect existing political subdivisions. But these are not always mandated by law. What is mandated is that every congressional district represents the same number of people, according to a Supreme Court case from 1964 interpreting Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution. Today, each congressional district must have a population of approximately 761,169. In other words, when map drawers take Black voters out of a Black congressional district, they will be forced to replace them with voters who may not represent their interests.

Mississippi was the first state to announce it would call a special session to draw new districts after the court’s decision. Mississippi’s second congressional district stretches from the Mississippi Delta through Jackson and along the western part of the state, and is Mississippi’s only reliably Democratic seat. It has a large majority Black population of over 60% with heavily Democratic voting concentrated in the Delta and the Jackson metro area. This geographic clustering of Black voters creates a reliably Democratic district even as the rest of Mississippi trends strongly Republican. As currently drawn, it serves as Mississippi’s primary Democratic anchor, while the rest of the state’s districts lean or are solidly Republican.

To make the 2nd Congressional District lean Republican, mapmakers would need to “crack” it into multiple pieces and attach each piece to surrounding white, heavily Republican regions in northern, eastern, and southern Mississippi. This would likely mean changing the 1st, 3rd, and 4th districts to make the redistribution geographically possible. If the new borders introduced roughly 60,000 Republican voters to the 2nd District in exchange for roughly 60,000 Democrats dispersed across the three other districts, this could be enough to give Republicans an edge in every race statewide (based on recent election results). On the other hand, Republicans’ majorities in the districts receiving Black voters would shrink. In some cases, this could make formerly safe Republican districts competitive in years when public opinion has already shifted in favor of the Democratic Party due, for example, to issues such as rising costs and dissatisfaction with the Iran war.

Another example of a district that could be a target is Tennessee’s 9th District, centered in Memphis and Shelby County. Located in the Southwest corner of Tennessee, it is bordered to the west by the Mississippi River and to the south by the state of Mississippi. Like Mississippi’s 2nd District, it has a majority Black population of over 60%, and elections there are typically won by Democrats by large margins.

We could see an approach similar to Mississippi’s 2nd District with mapmakers splitting Memphis into multiple pieces and attaching each portion to the surrounding heavily Republican rural and suburban counties in west and middle Tennessee. As in Mississippi, moving 60,000 Democratic voters into the 4th, 7th, and 8th districts in exchange for 60,000 Republican voters moving into the 9th District could be enough to make it slightly red based on recent election results. By distributing Democratic voters across multiple districts, each resulting seat would have a Republican-leaning profile, potentially producing an all-Republican congressional delegation but at the price of reducing the number of safe Republican seats. This is why Republican incumbents often resist redistricting plans that would make their hold on their districts less secure.

In each example, the Democratic district would become less Democratic, but the surrounding Republican districts would also become more Democratic and thus have less room for error. This is especially dangerous in a year where there appears to be a “blue wave” on the horizon. Breaking up Black districts means that those Black voters would have to go elsewhere, and there are Democratic voters in even the most conservative congressional districts.

The ultimate electoral impact

This Supreme Court decision may still end up being a political victory for Republicans, but it isn’t as straightforward as it looks. Democrats should put away their sackcloth and ashes, and Republicans shouldn’t pop the champagne corks just yet. GOP efforts to gerrymander congressional districts by redistributing Democratic voters could backfire if large numbers of voters reject Trump’s policies and overall job performance, and that electoral wave outweighs the impact of the new district lines.