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These are the Southern red states moving to redistrict after Supreme Court ruling

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by Julia Mueller and Sarah Fortinsky - 05/10/26 12:00 PM ET

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by Julia Mueller and Sarah Fortinsky - 05/10/26 12:00 PM ET

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Red states in the South are seeking to advance the GOP’s goal of keeping the House majority this fall by redrawing their congressional maps in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court ruling that reignited the redistricting arms race.

Tennessee Republicans approved a new map on Thursday that threatens to unseat the state’s lone House Democrat after the high court’s ruling, which declared Louisiana’s map an illegal gerrymander and gave the greenlight for more states to redraw ahead of the midterms. Other states in the South are eyeing their own changes.

The GOP-friendly moves come as Democrats suffer a setback in their own redistricting efforts in Virginia. The state’s Supreme Court on Friday invalidated a redistricting plan approved by Old Dominion voters last month, which would’ve expanded Democrats’ edge by four seats in the state’s House delegation.

The redistricting schemes underscore both parties’ efforts to do everything they can to minimize their losses and gain pickup opportunities as the midterms approach.

Here’s where redistricting efforts stand in the Southern states we’re tracking:

Louisiana

The Supreme Court ruled late last month that Louisiana’s addition of a second majority-Black congressional district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, a decision that weakens Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act that has long enabled new majority-minority districts.

The justices upheld a prior federal court’s decision that barred Louisiana from using a Legislature-drawn 2024 map, which included a district stretching from Shreveport to Baton Rouge. It’s currently represented by Rep. Cleo Fields (D-La.), one of just two Democrats in the six-member House delegation.

Louisiana officials have already delayed House primaries, initially set to start May 16, until July 15 or “such time as determined” by the state Legislature. All other primary races on the ballot, including for the U.S. Senate and state Supreme Court, will proceed as planned.

A committee in the state Senate on Friday began hearing public comment on redistricting, and the Legislature is expected to vote on new maps next week.

“There are very real constitutional problems with stopping an election in progress,” said Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School who maintains the website All About Redistricting.

“In Louisiana in particular, the governor sort of declared an emergency, but only for some races on the ballot, which shows you that there isn’t an emergency, because if there were a real emergency, you wouldn’t stop the voting for just some of the races.”

Any changes to congressional maps and primary dates months before November’s general elections present significant logistical hurdles for candidates, election officials and voters alike.

Still, the Louisiana decision has supercharged new plans to redistrict in other states as the fight for control of Congress ramps up, injecting more uncertainty into an already turbulent election landscape.

“I think it gets worse before it gets better,” Levitt said of the redistricting tit-for-tat that launched with a Trump-backed map in Texas last year.

“I think we haven’t seen the worst of it yet, and I think there are a lot of other states that are feeling enormous amounts of pressure to join the race to the bottom.”

Alabama

Alabama Republicans on Friday approved legislation directing the governor to schedule new primary elections this year under a GOP-friendly map — if the courts agree to lift an injunction requiring the current map to stay in place until after the 2030 Census.

The legislation would have no effect unless the courts lift a previous ruling requiring Alabama to have a second district where Black voters make up close to a majority, leading to Rep. Shomari Figures’s (D-Ala.) election in 2024.

Decision Desk HQ chief elections analyst Geoffrey Skelley said it seems “up in the air” whether the court will move to lift that injunction.

Republicans are hoping the courts will allow the state Legislature to implement a 2023 map — which was previously rejected by a federal court — that would give the GOP a chance to target Figures’s seat and create another pick-up opportunity in November.

The bill, which legislators sent to the governor’s desk Friday, would allow the governor to ignore the May 19 primary date for some congressional districts and hold a new congressional election.

The effort has met fierce resistance from state Democrats and Black lawmakers, who joi