Version imprimableMidterm elections usually result in gains for the party that is out of power, which this November, since Republican Trump is president and Republicans also control both houses of Congress, would mean a win for the Democrats. But Trump and the Republicans have decided to rig the election so that their party will win and retain control of Congress. Historically redistricting has been carried out in all states at the time of the decennial census to reflect changes in population, but now it is being done between censuses in a partisan manner to benefit one party. The process began in July 2025 when Trump demanded that Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott and the Republican dominated state legislature to redraw the state’s electoral districts.
In this redistricting process, Texas republicans are likely to win three to four additional seats in Congress. After Texas, the Republican states of Missouri and North Carolina also redrew their maps, producing one additional Republican seat in each of those states. And because of litigation Ohio and Utah both redistricted, resulting in two more Republican seats in Ohio and one more in Utah.
In response, California, with the largest congressional delegation, 52 seats, under the leadership of a Democratic governor Gavin Newsome, won a statewide referendum on redistricting. With the new map Democrats gained four to five new seats. Like California, Virginia passed a referendum to redistrict that would have added Democratic seats, but the state’s Supreme Court overturned it.
The second part of the story begins on April 29, 2026, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled regarding a case in Louisiana that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional racial gerrymandering because it ensured Black representation in Congress. To appreciate the significance of this, one must understand that after the U.S. Civil War (1861-65) liberated the former Black slaves, made them citizens, and gave them the right to vote, and after the brief progressive period known as “radical Reconstruction that ended in 1877, throughout the 11 states of the Old South, where slavery had existed, Black people were nevertheless generally denied the right to vote. Only after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, a period of enormous protest and conflict, did Blacks win the right to vote by the Voting Rights Act. That act ensured that Black people throughout the South could vote and be represented in Congress in proportion to their population in their state.
When in April the Supreme Court negated the Act, Republicans moved rapidly to redistrict in Tennessee and Florida, while Alabama and Georgia were also redistricted due to litigation. All of these will lead to more seats for Republicans and reduce representation for African Americans.
For example, in Tennessee, the voting district of the city of Memphis and Shelby County, 63% Black, was divided into three separate districts each attached to suburban or rural white areas, thus eliminating two Black, Democratic districts.
These are tremendous defeats for democracy and for Black Americans. Democrats might still win the midterm in November because of Trump’s current unpopularity, but in the future, they will find all elections will be more difficult. Some Black organizations have already begun to renew the fight for voting rights.
17 May 2026
