Southern redistricting could keep House in play for GOP

Across the U.S. South in recent days, conservative lawmakers have pushed mid-decade redistricting efforts meant to increase the Republican Party’s numbers in Congress. The unusual political moves, coming after a recent Supreme Court decision that struck down race-based redistricting, could make it more difficult for Democrats to reach their goal of winning control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November.

Thanks to redistricting, Republicans could win up to 14 House seats previously held by Democrats. But with expected losses elsewhere, the GOP gains don’t necessarily mean the party will retain control in the House.

The Republican Party holds a slim majority in both chambers of Congress, but for months, pollsters and politicians have predicted Democrats would win the House in this year’s midterm elections. Republicans currently control 218 House seats, compared with 212 held by Democrats. But several factors—including historical midterm trends, drooping White House approval ratings, and the broader U.S. redistricting trend—led experts to anticipate a House turned blue. But with redistricting, the hill for Democrats has gotten a little harder to climb.

“Republicans may benefit from the current mid-decade redistricting,” said New York Law School Professor Jeffrey Wice. “[But] Trump’s unpopularity just might make it difficult no matter how the lines are drawn.”

Redistricting—when state lawmakers draw new congressional district maps—normally occurs once a decade. But President Donald Trump has pushed Republican-led states to redraw their lines ahead of schedule in a bid to win additional GOP seats in November’s elections. Some Democratic states have made similar attempts.

The Supreme Court of Virginia on Friday rejected a voter-approved redistricting effort in the state that could have gained four House seats for Democrats. The court ruled 4-3 that the rushed legislative process Democrats employed to advance the proposal violated the Constitution of Virginia.

In a news briefing following the ruling, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican, praised the decision.

“This is a great day for actual fairness,” said Cuccinelli. “You will have the same map in 2026 for the congressional elections that existed in 2024.”

The loss of four potential House seats was a blow for Democrats. Virginia’s mid-decade redistricting, combined with five new Democratic-leaning seats in California and one in Utah, would have totaled to 10 seats.

Now, the GOP is racing ahead and is poised to pick up more seats in Southern states.

In Louisiana, the state’s May 16 House primaries were postponed until July to give lawmakers time to plan new districts after the U.S. Supreme Court last month struck down the state’s current map for racial gerrymandering. The ruling, Louisiana v. Callais, limited Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which the court determined states had misused to draw districts based on minority representation.

In a Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing that stretched into the wee hours of Wednesday morning, members approved a new map that gives Republicans an expected 5-1 advantage and redraws districts that allegedly wrongfully favored black Americans. The full Legislature must still approve the new map.

On Thursday in Tennessee, Republicans approved a new congressional map that dismantled the state’s sole Democrat-leaning (and sole majority-black) district, giving Tennessee a 9-0 GOP advantage. The gerrymandering divides a district representing Memphis into three that stretch across the rest of the state.

“The Supreme Court has opined that redistricting, like the judicial system, should be color-blind. The decision indicated states can redistrict based off partisan politics,” wrote Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, in a post on X. “Today, Tennessee joins other red and blue states in redrawing their congressional maps.”

Tennessee’s move, while critics and civil rights groups protest it as unlawful and hastily done, is seemingly valid under Louisiana v. Callais. The ruling requires proof that the state or locality intentionally discriminated against minority voters in order for redistricting to be blocked.

Wice, the New York Law School professor, critiqued that legal standard. “That’s like finding an impossible smoking gun,” he said.

In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey called a special session May 1 in an attempt to regain a 2023 congressional map that favors the GOP 6-1. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted an injunction that had prohibited the state from redistricting until after the 2030 census, a move that could potentially allow adoption of the 2023 map.

Florida’s new map could potentially increase Republican congressional dominance in the state from a 20-8 split to a 24-4 advantage, targeting districts that Democrats currently hold in Orlando, Tampa, and Miami. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the map into law last week, and a coalition of voting rights groups quickly filed a lawsuit against the new districts. For now, the new districts remain in play.

And in South Carolina on Friday, House Republicans took steps to postpone the state’s June primary election to allow legislators time to consider several new congressional maps, including a White House-endorsed map that could rid the state of its sole Democrat-leaning district. But on Tuesday, despite pressure from Trump, the state Senate voted against moving forward with the redistricting plan.

Meanwhile, legal battles are ongoing in Louisiana, where several civil rights and voting rights organizations have already filed emergency lawsuits in an effort to resume the primary.

If redistricting across the South goes as planned for Republicans, they could walk away netting roughly six to seven additional districts, according to the Cook Political Report. But the elections prognosticator still predicted Democrats would gain control of the House, given this year’s political winds in Democrats’ favor.

Political analyst Nate Cohn estimated last week that Democrats would need to win the combined House-race popular vote by 4 percentage points this November in order to win control of the chamber. That’s not an impossible scenario, given Trump’s low approval ratings and generic ballot polls that indicate voters favor Democratic congressional candidates by 6 points.

“While the Virginia court decision is a setback for Democrats,” said Wice, “it’s still too early to gauge the impact on the November elections, since so many races may be determined by other factors including President Trump’s policies, gas and food prices, and the Iran war situation.”