Redistricting, Supreme Court Should Worry Democrats About 2026

Pundits of varied political flavors see “rot” permeating our country. Fareed Zakaria in The Washington Post rightly chronicles a “crisis of faith” in our institutions, like the Supreme Court, to call honest balls and strikes. “Until we can believe again that the referee is trying to be fair,” he writes, “we will keep shouting ‘Ref, you suck!’ at our own democracy—and then wonder why the game no longer feels worth playing.” In the New York Times, David Brooks laments, “There has been a slow moral, emotional and intellectual degradation—the loss of the convictions, norms and habits of mind that undergird democracy. What worries me most is the rot creeping into your mind, and into my own.” Peggy Noonan, writing lyrically in The Wall Street Journal, has a queasy feeling: “Are we maintaining our republic? Is our equilibrium holding? The last nine months, a lot of lines seem to have been crossed … There are many areas in which you’ve come to think: Isn’t the executive assuming powers of the Congress here? Why is Congress allowing this? The executive branch assumes the authority to bend its foes and defeat them. You ask: Is all this constitutional? The president “jokes” that he may not accept the Constitution’s two-term presidential limit. Are you laughing?”

The cure must come from the vote of the American people, but the right to vote is being diluted as we watch, the constitutional principle of “one man, one vote” dishonored, and the will of the people traduced with partisan and even racial gerrymandering.

This week’s Democratic wave is significant, but it doesn’t obviate Trump’s pressuring Republican legislatures to redraw their congressional districts. This power grab could make it easier for the GOP to retain control of the narrowly divided House of Representatives, which is central to our democracy. The House is a safety valve. With complete turnover every two years—only one-third of Senate seats are up for grabs biennially—it can respond relatively quickly to national shifts in public sentiment. If Trump rigs it to keep the House, the consequences would be monumental. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a Voting Rights Act case from Louisiana last month that could lead to cataclysmic changes in how districts are drawn in Black and Latino communities, giving Republicans extra advantages, perhaps far more than their norm-violating mid-decade gerrymandering frenzy will yield, maybe as many as 20 seats. California’s passage of Proposition 50 could lead to Democrats picking up five congressional seats, but that may be swamped by the fallout from ripping up Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The redistricting march goes on. North Carolina recently redrew its congressional map, with Republican senators endorsing a new map. The state House of Representatives followed suit the next day. “The motivation behind this redraw is simple and singular: drawing a new map that will bring an additional Republican seat to the North Carolina congressional delegation,” state Senator Ralph Hise, the Republican who prepared the map, told colleagues this week: “President Trump has called on Republican-controlled states nationwide to redraw congressional districts. This map answers that call.”

Trump quickly praised North Carolina’s “improved” map last week on Truth Social, saying it would “give the fantastic people of North Carolina the opportunity to elect an additional MAGA Republican in the 2026 Midterm Elections.”

Before the gerrymander, Republicans controlled 10 of the Tar Heel state’s 14 congressional districts, and the new map would give Republicans a good shot at winning another, and maybe more. The district held by Representative Don Davis, a Democrat, already leans three percentage points toward Republicans, and the new map would give the GOP an 11-point advantage in that district.

Throughout the debate, Democrats decried the map for carving up Black communities. “By dismantling this district, Republicans aren’t just redrawing lines, they are erasing history, silencing voices, and turning their backs on decades of progress,” said State Senator Val Applewhite

Under North Carolina’s Constitution, Governor Josh Stein, a Democrat, lacks the authority to veto the measure. “If I did have that power, I assure you I would veto this map,” Stein responded after the vote. “Republican legislative leaders are abusing their power to take away yours. They’re afraid they will lose in the midterms and afraid to say no to the President, so they’ve turned their backs on you to silence your vote in the 2026 election.” North Carolina’s Democrats have little recourse. Of course, they could turn to the federal and state judiciary, but good luck with that. Whatever happened to “one man, one vote,” a salutary legal principle, now in the ashcan of history?

North Carolina is not the only state being redrawn. In August, Texas (which started this orgy of redrawing) approved a map aimed at gaining five House seats for Republicans. A month later, Missouri Republicans followed with a distorted map that shifted Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver’s district to be Republican-leaning.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in Kansas and Indiana are considering drawing new district lines. And GOP-controlled Ohio is required to draw new lines this year after passing its last map without Democratic support.

The vote in North Carolina took place two weeks after Republicans in Utah approved a map in response to a court ruling that could give Democrats a chance to win one or two seats. A judge is reviewing that map and may order changes.

Republicans are also considering drawing new maps in Florida and Kansas. In Indiana, the Republican governor is in favor of redrawing the boundaries but hasn’t convinced the GOP-controlled statehouse to adopt it.

Democrats are pushing back. California voters approved Proposition 50, while Maryland Governor Wes Moore announced the formation of a commission to review redistricting, indicating that the heavily Democratic state is ready to participate in mid-decade redistricting.

The significant shift of Hispanic votes toward Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey suggests that the Texas experiment that started this madness may ultimately fail. The Republican statehouse is drawing its new map, assuming Donald Trump’s strong performance in South Texas in 2024 meant Hispanics would reliably vote Republican. However, my colleague Bill Scher pointed out back in August that this was a dubious bet. After nearly a year of aggressive ICE raids and masked agents, it’s turning out to be very risky. Perhaps there’s still a chance to slow the decline.