Republicans spent two years redrawing 15 House districts in their favor. On election night they won at most three of them. Black voters in the South, the people those maps were aimed at, are a large reason why.
The turn came after the Supreme Court’s April ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, in which Justice Samuel Alito wrote that maps can pass legal scrutiny for partisan purposes “even if it so happens that the most loyal Democrats happen to be Black Democrats.” Six Southern states, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, then eliminated majority-minority districts. About 91% of Black voters backed Democrats this month, according to a New York Times analysis of the midterms. Turnout in majority-Black counties (60 to 80% Black) rose 21% from 2022, against 9% in majority-white counties, Mother Jones reported.
Alabama shows what that looked like. Republicans cut the Black voting-age population of the 2nd District from nearly 49% to just under 40%, aiming to oust Rep. Shomari Figures. Turnout in Montgomery County, the district’s Democratic core, climbed from 36% in 2022 to 50%. Figures won by eight points in a district Trump was estimated to have carried by 14.
The maps still took seats. In Tennessee, lawmakers repealed a decades-old ban on mid-decade redistricting and split Memphis, cutting the 9th District from about 60% Black to about 30%. Republican Brent Taylor beat Democrat Justin Pearson, 49.63% to 48.50%, a margin of 2,539 votes. Pearson conceded Wednesday but said he would not accept the redistricting or “attacks on democracy.” The old map favored Harris by 43 points; the new one leans toward Trump.
In Louisiana, the state suspended its primary after thousands of votes were cast and erased the majority-Black 6th District. Rep. Cleo Fields did not run again. The redrawn seat is estimated to favor Trump by 32 points, and a Dec. 12 runoff will decide it.
The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies counts 58 voting Black members in the next House, down from 61. Not all of that is the maps: some members retired and others ran for higher office. But the Black Caucus will be smaller in a Congress where Democrats hold the majority, and that is the price of the Callais decision.
John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said he thinks “Donald Trump’s gerrymandering scheme had a catastrophic impact for Republicans on the electoral results.” He is right about the seats Republicans lost. The seats Black Memphis and Black Louisiana lost are a different ledger. Black voters did what the court’s majority assumed they would not, and turned out in record numbers to defend districts. The Voting Rights Act was supposed to make that burden unnecessary.
Pearson has said he will keep challenging the Tennessee map. Louisiana votes again on Dec. 12.
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