The Supreme Court could still tilt the midterms to the GOP

Opinion by Ed Kilgore

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision invalidating the basis of Donald Trump’s beloved “Liberation Day” tariffs, there’s a sense that the Court’s conservative majority (or at least not all of it) may be less in thrall to this power-hungry president than is typically assumed. But as early as Wednesday (the next Supreme Court decision day), the Court could give Trump and his party a gift that will keep on giving for years: a decision gutting what’s left of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and green-lighting a whole new wave of partisan gerrymandering of congressional and state legislative districts.

Ever since SCOTUS unexpectedly ordered a reargument of a case (Louisiana v. Callais) challenging a Louisiana law creating a second majority-Black congressional district, legal beagles have been reasonably sure that the Court is on the brink of concluding that race-based criteria for ensuring minority representation under the VRA are a vestige of the distant past and may now run afoul of the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection principles. Based on the tone of oral arguments and the general drift of the Court’s voting-rights jurisprudence, a move against Section Two of the VRA (which allows private individuals to challenge election decisions, particularly redistricting, that threaten minority voting power) seems very likely. But two big questions remain: (1) Will the Court kill Section Two or simply make it harder for Section Two lawsuits to succeed? (2) Will the decision come down in time to affect the 2026 midterms?

If the Court doesn’t move decisively against Section Two, the decision in Callais may just gradually corrode the Black representation in Congress and state legislatures that the VRA has done so much to promote and preserve. However, if the Court finishes the job of gutting the VRA that it began in the landmark 2013 decision of Shelby County v. Holder (eliminating a powerful preclearance requirement for potentially discriminatory election changes), a door could open to a brand-new round of partisan gerrymandering. The effect could be especially dramatic in Republican-controlled southern states where the VRA has made it possible for Black Democratic legislators (at the federal and state level) to run in districts where Black voters are a majority or a highly influential minority.

,Should the Supreme Court go in that direction next week, a deep-dive analysis from the political-reform group Issue One suggests it would leave time for a potential gerrymander in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, and Florida. What these states have in common is relatively late filing deadlines for 2026, Republican-trifecta control of state government, and a demonstrated interest in partisan gerrymandering. One of these states, Florida, has already scheduled a special legislative session in April to carry out a Republican gerrymander in response to Trump’s demands and outgoing Governor Ron DeSantis’s personal commitment to wiping out Democratic representation. Here’s Issue One’s assessment of what might happen: “These changes could plausibly shift at least 5-8 House seats before the midterms, overwhelmingly benefiting Republicans, while significantly reducing Black representation in the South.”

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