Republicans rush to redraw maps after Supreme Court deals blow to VRA

The Supreme Court just triggered a second wave of the redistricting wars — and Republicans are on the march.

The court blew a hole in the Voting Rights Act on Wednesday, triggering immediate calls from Republicans to redraw a slew of southern congressional maps as soon as possible to improve their chances of holding the House this fall and boost their power for years to come.

Top GOP candidates, elected officials and party chairs across Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina — as well as rafts of Republican lawyers and MAGA allies — called for special sessions in their states to dismantle minority-majority districts and create more aggressive gerrymanders benefitting their party.

“There is no time to waste,” billionaire Rick Jackson, a leading GOP candidate for Georgia governor, said in a statement.

“LET’S GO!” said Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is also running for governor in Alabama.

“I'll do everything I can to make this map a reality,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Republicans’ frontrunner for governor in Tennessee, while sharing a suggested map of her state with no Democratic-held districts.

The decision injects new life into the gerrymandering tug-of-war that President Donald Trump kicked off last year in Texas. Republicans on Wednesday passed a new map in Florida that gives them a potential narrow edge over Democrats nationally, but many are now hoping they can significantly widen the gap following the court’s ruling.

Still, it remains unclear how much success the GOP will have in ramming through more maps before the midterms. Many filing deadlines have already passed, and primaries are rapidly approaching in other states, like Louisiana. And even redistricting wins across all of these states may not be enough to save Republicans from a treacherous midterm cycle.

But GOP operatives argue there is still time to redraw some states this year.

Jason Torchinsky, a top Republican election lawyer, wrote in a text message that “there are opportunities for states that want to adjust some maps, but lots depends on timing and where the state election machinery in each state stands.”

“I think there's a path for a lot of [states], but these things always come down to a political question. They need the votes,” said Adam Kincaid, who leads the National Republican Redistricting Trust and was a key player in the White House’s push to redistrict. “They have to get the votes in these chambers to get it done.”

But he hedged when asked about a maximalist approach to 2026 redraws.

“I'm not going to say everyone should redraw,” he said. “What I am gonna say is that if you're a state that has districts that were drawn intentionally on the basis of race, you really need to evaluate, one, whether you're on any kind of strong footing to defend those maps, and two, at what point are you going to remedy those issues?”

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, rejected calls from within her party to call a special session on Wednesday, citing a separate court ruling that prevents the state from redrawing its maps until 2030.

"While we are not in position to have a special session at this time, I hope in light of this new decision, the court is favorable to Alabama," Ivey said in a statement.

But the outside pressure on state lawmakers in these GOP states will be immense.

Trump, speaking in the Oval Office Wednesday afternoon, said that he would encourage states like Louisiana, where early voting begins this weekend, to redraw their maps if they have the time to do so. He added that he hadn't had time to review the Supreme Court's ruling.

"I would say generally I would think that they would want to do it," he said.

The powerful GOP-aligned super PAC Club for Growth Action, a close Trump ally which has poured millions into pressure campaigns related to redistricting, wants states “to be as aggressive as possible as soon as possible,” said one person familiar with the Club’s thinking who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

“Any Republican Governor in any Southern state that isn’t huddling with their staff now to call a special session to redraw their maps should be primaried,” CJ Pearson, a co-chair of the Republican National Committee’s Youth Advisory Council, said on X.

Will Chamberlain, a senior counsel for the GOP-aligned Article III Project, urged GOP governors across the South to immediately call their Legislatures into a special session to redraw maps.

The decision to push forward with any redistricting effort relies heavily on the governors’ and state lawmakers’ ability and interest to return to session, as many — like Georgia — have already adjourned for the year. Candidate filing deadlines have already closed in many of these states and voting has already begun in states like Georgia, making it too late to change the maps in many cases. But those temporary roadblocks have not stopped several Republican candidates from swiftly calling for action.

An open race for governor in South Carolina has drawn a crowded field of five Republican candidates — four of whom were quick to demand state lawmakers in Columbia to eliminate longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn’s (D-S.C.) seat. Clyburn said in a post on X the court seems “hellbent” on eliminating “African American political representation in multiple Southern states.”

Tuberville, who’s running for Alabama governor, had already called for his home state to redraw their lines in a timely op-ed published Tuesday. The state, he argued, “by all rights should send an entirely Republican delegation to Washington” because Alabama votes overwhelmingly for the GOP. Tuberville reshared the article after the Supreme Court decision landed.

Blackburn, another senator running for governor in a GOP-controlled state, called for the legislature to reconvene to enact a new map of exclusively red districts.

In Georgia, the two front-runners locked in a competitive GOP primary for governor — Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Rick Jackson — swiftly applauded the ruling and threw their support behind drawing new congressional maps. Sen. Greg Dolezal, who is running for lieutenant governor, called for an immediate special session.

“I agree that in a society built on the equal protection of law, no state should be directed to draw legislative maps on the basis of race. Given that Georgia was ordered to do so in its last round of redistricting, I fully support redrawing our state’s legislative maps in compliance with today’s decision,” Jones, who is endorsed by Trump in the primary, said in a statement.

“Democrats nationally are trying to redistrict their way back to power, and what happened in Virginia is just the tip of the spear. There is no time to waste,” Jackson said in a statement.

Democrats are scrambling to figure out how best to respond against Republicans’ latest efforts. Some are dismissing the logistical likelihood of the GOP pushing through changes to current maps. Others called for restoring the VRA — but wouldn’t say more about their redistricting strategy. A few are ready to go on the offensive.

“I have long felt that we all have to play by the same set of rules and the Republican caucus has made it very clear that they want and are setting rules of partisan gerrymandering,” Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters after the court decision.

“I take 52 seats from California, and 17 seats from Illinois, because at the end of the day, they're rigging this election to try to win. And we just can't sit back here and do nothing. We're going to play their game, and we're going to beat them at it,” said Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), whose seat may be on the chopping block.

New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said she is working with the state’s legislature to “change New York’s redistricting process so we can fight back against Washington’s attempts to rig our democracy,” though that’s unlikely to happen before 2026. An effort from earlier this year was already blocked in court.

Democrats were able to mostly counter the GOP’s redistricting gains so far.

California voters passed a ballot measure, backed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, to give the party an edge in five more House seats, pegged as a response to Texas. Earlier this month, voters in Virginia passed a measure that could net the party four seats as well, though that measure faces a challenge in front of the state supreme court. While Florida lawmakers’ new map gives the GOP a slight advantage nationally over Democrats, it’s a far cry from the numbers the White House expected when it first kicked off this war.

Both parties have hit snags in their redistricting battles over the past year, with Indiana Republicans rebuking Trump and Democrats in Illinois and Maryland refusing to pass redraws. That leaves major uncertainty — especially given the rushed timeline — for the success of any more redraws this year.

And while the Supreme Court did narrow Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, some Democratic lawyers saw openings in the ruling for future litigation, pointing to the 14th Amendment.

Regardless of how many states can get something across the board in time for the midterms, the redistricting rodeo that has encompassed American politics for the last two years is here to stay.

“There will be a lot of redistricting for the next couple years,” Kincaid said.

Liz Crampton, Cheyanne M. Daniels, Lisa Kashinsky, Megan Messerly and Samuel Benson contributed to this report.