Two weeks in the past, after Virginia voters authorised a brand new closely Democratic congressional map, it was wanting like President Donald Trump’s bare-knuckle gerrymandering push had fizzled – and might even backfire.
Two weeks, it seems, is a very long time in politics.
A pair of court docket rulings – one from the US Supreme Court and now one from the Virginia Supreme Court Friday – have sharply recast the 2026 redistricting battles in the GOP’s favor.
That doesn’t imply it’ll be sufficient to save lots of the GOP’s House majority in 2026, and the affect this yr may very well be extra muted than lots of people admire.
But the redistricting battle has now clearly benefitted Republicans. And it’s going to most likely assist them much more in years to return.
The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a map handed after Democrats spent tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} to advertise the referendum enacting it. The court docket dominated Democrats in the state legislature didn’t comply with the right process in establishing the constitutional modification permitting the vote final fall.
That means Democrats gained’t get a map that doubtless would have gained them 4 seats. They’ll as a substitute should attempt to flip seats on a map that at the moment options six Democrats and 5 Republicans.
That information comes after the US Supreme Court delivered an much more important ruling final week – one with not simply instant partisan implications but in addition long-term implications, together with for racial politics in America.
In Louisiana v. Callais, the court docket further gutted the Voting Rights Act and made it simpler for Republicans to disassemble the majority-minority districts which can be about all Democrats right now have in the Deep South.
The GOP has shortly set about doing that. Tennessee has already carved up a majority-Black district primarily based in Memphis to give Republicans a 9-0 map, and Louisiana is predicted to quickly get rid of one or each of its majority-Black districts. Alabama has petitioned to lift a court order that requires it to maintain a second majority-minority district.
Applying these modifications to the NCS redistricting tracker, it’s wanting like Republicans may have drawn as many as 15, 16 or 17 new winnable districts for themselves for this yr’s midterms, whereas Democrats may have drawn 5 – all of them in California. (Utah additionally added a Democratic-leaning district, but it surely was due to a court docket ruling.)
That’s definitely a significantly better state of affairs for Republicans than two weeks in the past.
Rather than Democrats having to flip the three Republican seats they wanted to interrupt Speaker Mike Johnson’s razor-thin majority, they may now successfully should flip greater than 10.
But that may truly oversell the hurdle that’s been created for 2026. That’s as a result of a few of the districts drawn by Republicans are removed from assured to go their approach, particularly in an excellent yr for Democrats.
Ohio’s new map, as an illustration, might achieve Republicans two seats, but it surely might additionally achieve them none. And whereas Republicans intend their Texas map to realize them 5 seats, and their Florida map 4, a few of these districts might be fairly tough to win in an excellent Democratic yr, significantly with Trump’s sharp decline in approval with Latino voters.
Even in Virginia, Democrats might nonetheless flip a number of seats on the present map in 2026, which means the ruling isn’t essentially a lack of 4 seats.
“If the current map holds in Virginia, we will at minimum flip two seats,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries instructed NCS on Friday. “And we’re exploring other options given how unpopular the policies of the Republican party have been.”
Before the Virginia Supreme Court dominated Friday, the Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter estimated that precise internet profit for Republicans in 2026 was prone to be closer to four or five seats, even when the Virginia map was struck down.
Even if the GOP forces Democrats to flip double-digits price of seats somewhat than three, that’s wanting fairly doable for the blue workforce.
That’s as a result of Trump is a historically unpopular president. Presidents with low approval scores don’t simply lose 12 seats; they usually lose a multiple of that.
Trump in 2018 misplaced greater than 40 House seats. Barack Obama in 2010 misplaced greater than 60. George W. Bush in 2006 misplaced about 30.
And Trump is worse off proper now than all of these examples besides Bush.
The universe of aggressive seats is smaller as of late, which means an enormous wave election would appear much less doubtless than in these earlier midterm elections. But it will nonetheless be shocking if the Democrats couldn’t win sufficient to flip the majority.
At the identical time, it’s overly reductive to simply take a look at how it will play out in 2026. That’s as a result of all of this – and particularly the US Supreme Court ruling – will reverberate for years to return.
And that’s the place the GOP’s actual doubtless good points might come in.
For one, even when these districts may not be purple sufficient to go Republican in an excellent Democratic yr in 2026, they’ll nonetheless favor Republicans in normal. And they may nicely flip purple in a greater setting for Republicans – be that in 2028 or 2030.
For two, the GOP can proceed to tug aside majority-minority districts in the South in the coming cycles, together with in states like Georgia the place the US Supreme Court’s ruling got here too late for the 2026 election.
We nonetheless don’t know fairly how far they’ll go in doing that; a lot will depend on upcoming court docket instances deciphering the Supreme Court’s ruling, and Democrats will be able to fight back some. But one examine earlier than the case was determined advised Republicans might gain well more than a dozen seats with a really favorable ruling.
And for 3, there’s simply the rising actuality of a relentless redistricting war.
That actuality: To the extent redistricting is now only a endless race to the backside for partisan achieve, the place states draw new maps each time it fits them, that likely benefits Republicans. They merely management extra of the course of.
Democrats might achieve some energy again by scrapping redistricting commissions in states they management and eliminating different state restrictions on partisan gerrymandering.
But Republicans are simply in a greater spot in state governments. The states the place they maintain the “trifecta” of each state legislative chambers and the governor’s mansion account for more seats.
And the US Supreme Court has now handed them a key weapon in a redistricting war that appears prefer it’s right here to remain.