Supreme Court roils 2026 midterms with Voting Rights Act ruling

Senators in both parties say the Supreme Court has roiled the political landscape ahead of the midterm elections by effectively striking down majority-minority House districts as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. Democrats vented their rage over a ruling they said would return the nation to the Jim Crow-era policies of the 1950s and early '60s, when Black...

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Senators in both parties say the Supreme Court has roiled the political landscape ahead of the midterm elections by effectively striking down majority-minority House districts as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

Democrats vented their rage over a ruling they said would return the nation to the Jim Crow-era policies of the 1950s and early ’60s, when Black citizens voted at far lower rates than today because of restrictions such as poll taxes and literacy tests. They also fear it could help Republicans pick up as many as 19 new GOP-leaning House seats.

Republicans hailed the decision as a big political victory, and some GOP lawmakers, such as Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), immediately called on GOP state legislatures to redraw congressional districts, even though House primaries are only weeks away.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) declared the ruling “upends half a century of precedent” and “defies the spirit of the American civil rights movement.”

“By some estimates, this decision could lead conservative state legislatures to draw as many as 19 additional seats that favor Republicans in the House,” he said.

Tuberville, one of President Trump’s closest Senate allies, called on the Republican-controlled Alabama state legislature to move aggressively.

“LET’S GO!” Tuberville wrote on the social platform X, reposting an op-ed he wrote Tuesday urging Alabama’s attorney general and secretary of state to file a motion to vacate a federal district court injunction locking in Alabama’s congressional district map through 2030.

“Our own state of Alabama — which voted for Trump by 65% in 2024 — by all rights should send an entire Republican delegation to Washington,” he wrote.

Alabama now has two majority-minority congressional districts — the 2nd District, represented by Rep. Shomari Figures (D), and the 7th District, represented by Rep. Terri Sewell (D).

“In a country where only 20 House seats are truly competitive, two more Republicans from Alabama could mean the difference between gridlock and advancing Trump’s agenda,” Tuberville wrote.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who is running for governor of her state, called on Republican state lawmakers to convene a special legislative session to draw a new congressional map and eliminate the majority-minority district in Memphis, which is represented by Rep. Steve Cohen (D).

“It’s essential to cement @realDonaldTrump’s agenda and the Golden Age of America. I vowed to keep Tennessee a red state, and as governor, I’ll do everything I can to make this map a reality,” she posted on X along with a graphic of Tennessee made up of entirely red congressional districts.

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who pushed hard for Republicans in Indiana to redraw their congressional districts ahead of the midterms, said it’s too late for his home state to redraw its lines but predicted the Supreme Court’s decision could give new impetus to Republicans in other states.

“If both sides are doing it, you kind of have an arms race,” he said. “The Supreme Court decision today I think further motivates that case.”

An hour after the Supreme Court handed down its decision, the Republican-controlled Florida House approved an aggressively gerrymandered map that could net Republicans four more House seats after the 2026 election.

The new map could put Democratic Reps. Kathy Castor, Darren Soto, Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz in danger of losing their seats in Florida.

The ruling could impact congressional maps in other Republican states, such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi and South Carolina.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said “it will certainly apply to Missouri.”

“If it affects our current map, I don’t know,” he added. “We need to comply with the Supreme Court ruling. I imagine our attorney general will weigh in on this. … What the court basically said is that you cannot draw districts on the basis of race unless there is the tightest of connections to the harms identified by the Voting Rights Act … which I think is right and appropriate.”

In Wednesday’s decision, the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district.

Writing for the conservative majority, Justice Samuel Alito argued “the Constitution almost never permits the Federal Government or a State to discriminate on the basis of race” and that Louisiana did not have a compelling interest to justify in basing its congressional district map on race.

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan penned a forceful dissent accusing the court’s majority of gutting the landmark Voting Rights Act and arguing that plaintiffs alleging schemes to dilute the representation of minority voters will find it “nearly impossible” to succeed in court.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) called the ruling “another evisceration of [Section] 2 of the Voting Rights Act.”

“It’s really something that’s very disturbing when you see further disenfranchisement of voters,” he said.

“That’s the whole reason why we have the Voting Rights Act, to stop legislature from trying to undermine fairness of elections — to stop them [from trying] to undermine Blacks from having fair representation,” Booker added. “It’s based on a really dark history. … We’ve seen evidence that still exists.”

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) called the ruling “yet another assault on voting rights from the same Supreme Court that hobbled the Voting Rights Act in Shelby v. Holder.”

“I’m deeply disappointed by the decision that we saw today, but I refuse to be discouraged,” he said.

Both parties before the decision had been gerrymandering in states they control, moves that looked to be a wash.

Democrats in Virginia last week scored a victory by winning a statewide vote on a new gerrymandered House map that could net Democrats four more House seats.

Earlier, Texas had redrawn its legislative maps to provide Republicans with a chance of winning five more seats, while California’s voters approved new maps in a referendum that could help Democrats gain five seats.

Republicans’ fears about this year’s midterm elections have been on the rise as the Iran war has raised gas prices and President Trump’s approval ratings have plummeted.

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