Now that the Supreme Court has gutted yet another piece of the Voting Rights Act, this one concerning redistricting, here’s one thing we know for sure: Democrats will have to enter into a new era of procedural total war. That might make many of them uncomfortable, but when it comes to the future of the liberal agenda, the stakes are enormous.
With Donald Trump’s active encouragement, Republicans are already seizing on the ruling—which essentially dismantled protections against racial gerrymandering—to threaten to redraw maps in the South to eliminate numerous congressional seats with Black representatives. While it’s largely too late to do so this cycle, Republicans will likely launch mid-decade redistricting in many Southern states heading into 2028, eliminating as many as 19 more Democratic seats in hopes of locking in a near-permanent GOP majority.
In substantive and legal terms, this outcome is awful—see this overview from TNR’s Matt Ford for a full rundown—but in a purely political sense, is this Armageddon for Democrats? Not necessarily. The reason? Democrats can move to redraw maps in time for the 2028 elections in states where they control the legislatures.
Which points to one big takeaway from the court ruling: State legislative races—which already attract too little attention—just got a lot more important. Many races underway now will help determine the party’s long-term prospects in the scorched-earth conflict that’s about to unfold.
According to a new analysis by Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group, Democrats could redraw anywhere from 10 to 22 additional congressional seats for the party in time for the 2028 elections if they push hard with redistricting in seven blue and swing states. The analysis—which is circulating among Democratic leadership aides and outside groups and was obtained by TNR—concludes that being aggressive could theoretically offset Republican gains, even in a maximalist GOP redistricting scenario.
“Democrats have a clear path to neutralize this GOP power grab if they want to take it,” Max Flugrath, senior communications director of Fair Fight Action, told me. “This is the ‘break glass in case of emergency’ moment for American democracy.”
The range of potential Democratic gains is so broad because so much depends on which party controls key state legislatures after the fall elections. Strikingly, even if Democrats flip zero chambers, they can redraw up to 10 additional congressional districts for the party, the analysis finds, by maximizing gerrymanders in New York, Colorado, Oregon, and Maryland, where Democrats control governorships and state legislatures.
But even more strikingly, Democrats could redraw as many as 22 additional congressional districts for the party overall if they flip legislative chambers in other states and redraw aggressively in them, the analysis finds.
Take Wisconsin, where the governor is a Democrat and Republicans control the state legislature. Democrats think they have a good shot at flipping both legislative houses, due in part to dramatic Democratic overperformances in recent special elections.
Notably, Republicans control six congressional seats in Wisconsin while Democrats control two. But the state is evenly divided, with Democrats winning recent statewide elections there. Ironically, precisely because Wisconsin has long been heavily gerrymandered for the GOP, Democrats can now redraw three additional House districts for themselves, the analysis finds, by unpacking current urban districts and linking up Democratic voters in the north.
Then there’s Minnesota, where Democrats control the governorship and State Senate. The State House is tied, but Democrats are bullish on flipping at least one seat, which would mean a trifecta. While the state constitution may bar an immediate redistricting, that could theoretically be amended in time for Democrats to redistrict for the 2028 or 2030 elections.
Another possibility is Pennsylvania. This would require flipping one legislative chamber, the senate—and redrawing aggressively by concentrating Republicans in central rural districts and spreading around urban Democratic voters more, the Fair Fight Action analysis finds. It argues that three congressional seats are gettable in Wisconsin, three in Minnesota, and up to six in Pennsylvania.
“Twenty-two House seats across seven states may sound like a heavy lift,” Flugrath told me. “But our analysis shows it’s well within reach if blue-state governors and legislatures squeeze every potential seat out of the maps.”
This analysis, of course, attempts to quantify the very outer range of what’s possible. Much will be decided by how hard Democrats push. But they are gearing up: House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries told Politico that Democrats will seek gerrymanders at minimum in New York, Colorado, Maryland, and Illinois.
Flipping more legislatures this cycle is also essential, however. “The only path to ensure communities of color aren’t silenced into perpetuity and Democrats have a shot at a durable U.S. House majority is to win more statehouses,” Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, told me. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment.”
Meanwhile, contests like the Georgia gubernatorial race have suddenly taken on new importance. Republicans control the state legislature there, and they’re already threatening a gerrymander next year, but a Democratic governor could thwart it. “As governor, I will veto any map that dilutes the voices of Black and Latino voters,” Keisha Lance Bottoms, a leading Democratic candidate in the state, told me in a statement.
To be clear, none of this should have to happen. Though Democrats have gerrymandered themselves over the years, Republicans went full throttle and never looked back after capturing many state legislatures in their 2010 midterm rout. Democrats have attempted for years to model an alternative path with independent redistricting commissions in many states and with federal legislation ending gerrymandering for both sides.
The Democratic position, then, has long been that neither side should gerrymander. It disrespects the opposition’s voters and allows lawmakers to insulate themselves from accountability. But if Republicans insist on it, Democrats have no choice but to do the same.
The vain hope of many good-government liberals had been that charting a path toward mutual deescalation just might entice Republicans to join them. But with Republicans openly threatening to maximize their own gerrymanders after the court ruling, such hopes of mutual forbearance are now plainly dead.
Yet if Democrats have a good cycle on the state legislative level, there will be real opportunities to mitigate the GOP advantage. We don’t know how willingly Democrats will undertake all this, but they will undoubtedly come under intense pressure to do so. If Republicans make good on their threats, the choice for Democrats will be stark: Push forward, or perish. If Republicans don’t like it, too bad: This is the world they wanted, and it is they who are now inflicting it upon us.
