7 House seats could shift to GOP after voting rights ruling: Cook Political Report, Sabato's Crystal Ball |
7 House seats could shift to GOP after voting rights ruling: Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball
Two nonpartisan election handicappers identified seven districts that could be at risk of being redrawn to favor Republicans following the Supreme Court’s Wednesday decision limiting the scope of the Voting Rights Act provision that creates majority-minority districts.
Both Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which is published by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said the court’s ruling — which deemed Louisiana’s current map an illegal racial gerrymander and ordered it be redrawn — could ultimately jeopardize all of the Democratic seats in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina.
They said it’s unclear, however, whether those effects would play out ahead of the November midterms, noting some states would be required to move candidate filing deadlines and perhaps even primary dates.
“A new map by the GOP legislature is almost certain to result in at least one Republican pickup, though it’s unclear whether that can occur in time for the 2026 election,” Amy Walter and Matthew Klein wrote in the Cook Political Report analysis. “There are still a lot of unanswered questions swirling around this decision, especially its impact on the 2026 midterm election.”
“The decision may or may not have a major,........