A Redistricting Check-in at the Dawn of the Callais Era
Author Kyle Kondik, Published on: , Published in:2026 House
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE
— The U.S. Supreme Court issued its long-awaited Callais decision on Wednesday. The decision may or may not have a major, immediate impact on 2026, but its ripple effects will be felt more deeply in subsequent elections.
— Callais also guarantees that the mid-decade redistricting battle of 2025-2026 will continue into 2027-2028.
— As we await the Callais fallout, we already have seen a huge amount of mid-decade redistricting this cycle. These states with redrawn maps account for nearly 40% of all of the nation’s House seats.
— Amazingly, though, the median House seat by 2024 presidential margin is actually the same as it was before any states redrew.
— However, it wouldn’t be accurate to say that nothing has changed. The number of truly competitive seats as well as the number of truly uncompetitive seats have both declined.
Redistricting after Callais and the dominoes yet to fall
On Wednesday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in the Callais case, which deals with Section Two of the Voting Rights Act and its protections for majority-minority districts. This 6-3 ruling from the court’s conservative bloc deals specifically with the recent creation of a second majority-Black Democratic district in Louisiana, but it will have ripple effects far beyond the bayou.
The Callais decision appears to limit Section Two in such a way that it may effectively no longer protect the existence of majority-minority districts.
It was not immediately crystal clear whether the ruling would pave the way for Republican-controlled states to redraw and eliminate majority or plurality Black districts that elect Democrats in the South, although that very well could be the ultimate effect. Examples of these kinds of districts include two in Louisiana—the state at the center of the decision—two in Alabama, one in Mississippi, one in Tennessee, and one in South Carolina. All five Democratic-held seats in Georgia are majority-Black by population, although Georgia is such a competitive state that Republicans could chip away at some of those seats but not all of them. Florida, meanwhile, is on the verge of adopting a new Republican-drawn gerrymander that seemed to anticipate the Callais decision.
The primary filing deadline is closed in all of these states except Florida, and Mississippi has already held its primary. Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana have their primaries in May. Louisiana could, as one source suggested, revert to its traditional “jungle primary” held in November (with a later runoff in races where no one wins a majority) to give itself time to draw a new map. Early voting for the May 16 primary there begins Saturday. Early voting has already started in Georgia.
It certainly appears possible, perhaps even likely, that these Republican states will be able to draw out all or some of their Democratic-held seats, if not in 2026 than 2028.
Louisiana will be an early test, particularly if they attempt to redraw for this year and push back their congressional primary. Do they just change LA-6 back into a Republican-leaning seat, which was the status quo before a court ruling forced its creation in advance of the 2024 election, or do they go further, targeting that district as well as the New Orleans-based LA-2? Likewise, does Tennessee eliminate TN-9, a Memphis-based majority Black district? While the filing deadline there was in early March, the primary is not until August. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) immediately called for a redraw, tweeting out an image of a hypothetical 9-0 Republican Tennessee map (the state is 8-1 Republican now, and Blackburn is running for governor).
If those states make these moves and federal courts do not intervene, protections for these kinds of districts will be verifiably dead—something that liberal Justice Elena Kagan already suggests is the case, writing in her dissent that “Today’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter.”
Everyone wants to know what impact this will have on 2026. The reality is that it’s hazy—we will have to see how states actually react to the decision.
But let’s remember that this ruling was issued during a time of “maximum warfare” on redistricting, a phrase House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) used recently, echoing the wording from an unidentified person close to the president quoted in an August 2025 New York Times report on the White House’s redistricting efforts.
Given the overall redistricting environment, we would expect Republicans to push hard where they have the opportunity to do so, be it for 2026 or beyond. Expect the unexpected, and don’t assume that doors that seem closed for 2026 will remain closed. We’ll know more in the coming days as states react to this ruling.
The other thing this ruling guarantees—which seemed very likely to be the case anyway—is that the redistricting fight of 2025-2026 will spill into 2027-2028. Beyond reckoning with Callais, states that opted not to redistrict in 2026, such as Indiana on the Republican side or Maryland on the Democratic side, could try again in 2028. States with court-drawn maps, most notably Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, could redraw if one side wins control of the governorship and state legislature. Democratic-run states constrained by commission-based redistricting systems could try to override them with the help of the voters, as we saw in California and Virginia. They may face added pressure to do so to keep up with what very well could be a post-Callais Republican windfall in the South, and Callais likely means fewer constraints on Democratic linedrawers too (although they will face intraparty pressure not to dilute minority voting strength, particularly as it is being diluted elsewhere).
On and on we go.
With the caveat that this is going to change, we thought Virginia adopting a new map and Florida being on the verge of adopting one was a good time to check in on the overall redistricting picture. As you could probably guess, we crunched these numbers before the Callais decision came out, but they’re interesting enough that we thought we’d share them anyway and then update them later on as needed.
A major caveat: The dust has not yet settled on some new maps. There are still legal questions about whether the new maps in Florida (designed to allow Republicans to win up to four new seats once it is signed into law by the governor after the legislature approved it Wednesday), Missouri (designed to allow Republicans to win an extra seat), and Virginia (designed to allow Democrats to win up to four new seats) will actually be used this year. Obviously if any of these states revert back to their old maps, it’ll change the observations that follow.
And then there are the eventual ramifications of Callais, which could lead to further district changes in advance of this year’s election. If those changes occur, today’s assessment may provide a starting point to see how Callais, specifically, changed the House dynamics following all of the redistricting we already saw before the decision.
As we are writing right now, on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 29, eight states have drawn new district lines for the 2026 election or were on the verge of doing so (Florida). This includes the three most populous states—California, Texas, and Florida—along with Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, and Virginia.
These states account for nearly 40% of all of the nation’s House districts.
Continue/Read Original Article: A Redistricting Check-in at the Dawn of the Callais Era – Sabato’s Crystal Ball
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