Louisiana Republicans passed a new gerrymander on Friday that will eliminate one of the state’s two Democratic, majority-Black House districts ahead of the midterms.
The state Senate sent the bill to GOP Gov. Jeff Landry, who is expected to approve it.
The new map was spurred by the Supreme Court’s decision to narrow the Voting Rights Act, which gave Louisiana the greenlight to redraw its majority-minority districts and kicked off new gerrymanders in other GOP-led southern states, like Tennessee.
Friday’s result is a major win for Landry and for President Donald Trump, further extending Republicans’ gains through mid-decade redistricting this cycle.
Rep. Cleo Fields’ (D-La.) district has been completely erased in the new map, while Rep. Troy Carter’s (D-La.) blue-leaning district has been redrawn to mostly mirror the seat he won in 2022.
Fields’ district snaked across the state from Shreveport to Baton Rouge, while Carter’s seat was largely based around New Orleans.
In order to pass the map for this year’s midterms, Landry used his executive authority to declare a state of emergency and canceled May primary elections for House races, something that has cost millions of dollars and led to widespread confusion. Louisiana’s House primaries will now take place on Nov. 3, with any necessary runoffs stretching to December.
Some GOP members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation were not pleased with the new map. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) recently called it a “Frankenstein looking thing” that “was NO DOUBT drawn up by a very small handful of guys in a secret room.”
His post caught the attention of state House lawmakers when their chamber approved the map on Thursday. Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus Chair Edmond Jordan, a Democrat, joked on the House floor that “hell has frozen over” because he agreed with Higgins.
Louisiana’s one-seat gain comes as other states Georgia like and most recently South Carolina declined to pursue redistricting or put it on hold until the 2028 cycle. The redraw spree first kicked off last summer in Texas and has spread to 10 states, some of which are still held up in court.
There will almost certainly be legal challenges in Louisiana, and potentially from the same plaintiffs in Louisiana v. Callais, who have already argued in court filings that the one remaining Black-majority district is unconstitutional.
South Carolina Republicans defied President Donald Trump and blocked a redistricting measure that would have drawn out the state’s lone Democrat, Rep. Jim Clyburn.
The move Tuesday all but kills their chances of flipping that seat for 2026. It’s possible the GOP will still draw out Clyburn before 2028.
A procedural vote to end debate on the map early failed in the state Senate 24-20, with 12 Republicans joining all Democrats. The state Senate then voted to adjourn until June 10, effectively ending any hope of redistricting before the midterms.
It’s a massive pivot from just two weeks ago, when GOP Gov. Henry McMaster chose to call a special season to redraw after pressure from Trump and the White House. Now, Republican lawmakers who defected in South Carolina could face the same fate in 2028 as Indiana lawmakers who rebuked Trump — and then lost their primaries to MAGA-aligned challengers.
But because of the timing of the elections — the timing they refused to change — the South Carolina Republicans will likely be safe until the 2028 primaries, as early voting has already begun for this year.
In a statement after the measure failed, state Sen. Larry Grooms placed the blame at McMaster’s feet for declining to call a special session until it was too late.
“Republicans and the White House worked quickly to pass a redistricting plan before the start of in-person voting,” he said, “but the call from the governor came too late.” (McMaster called the special session almost immediately after the legislature’s regular session ended).
The rebuke from fellow Republicans came as a shock to Trump’s political operation, according to one person close to the White House granted anonymity to discuss the internal dynamics. McMaster never gave the White House a heads up that the vote was on track to fail, the person said.
McMaster’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The state’s Senate GOP leader, Shane Massey, had long opposed a redraw, giving a fiery speech during a procedural vote earlier this month that received national attention. Despite earlier votes in the Senate looking on pace for a redraw, a number of Republicans flipped on Tuesday, citing the start of early voting as reason for doing so.
Even without the extra seat from South Carolina, Republicans have an overall edge in the redistricting war. But many of those wins came from the courts.
The Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year to narrow the Voting Rights Act has led to swift redraws across other Southern states, and the Virginia Supreme Court erased a four-seat Democratic gerrymander that was approved by voters.
There are still some states outstanding before November. Alabama Republicans are trying to use a 2023 map that eliminates a Democratic-held seat, but it’s jammed up in court. And Louisiana Republicans are still working to pass a map before the midterms.
South Carolina GOP Gov. Henry McMaster is expected to announce a special session on redistricting, teeing up the state legislature to pass a Republican gerrymander that would almost certainly cost Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn his seat in this year’s midterms.
Clyburn is the sole Democrat in South Carolina’s House delegation; the new map would dismantle his district, leaving the state with 7 likely red seats and no Democratic-leaning ones.
McMaster’s plan — confirmed by four people familiar with the decision, who were granted anonymity to share private details — is a reversal of his position earlier this month and follows pressure from President Donald Trump and his allies to gerrymander the state.
The looming special session comes after five Republican state senators voted with Democrats to block a measure that would have allowed them to redraw South Carolina’s districts this cycle without a call from McMaster.
The special session will let lawmakers pass a new map with a simple majority, making it likely that it will advance given the GOP’s margins.
McMaster is expected to announce the plans later Wednesday, but he cannot formally call the special session until lawmakers adjourn their regular session, which will happen Thursday. And until the decision is official, it is possible he could change his mind.
McMaster's office did not respond to requests for comment. Fox Carolina News first reported McMasters’ plans to call the special session.
“South Carolina isn’t done,” James Blair, who is leaving the White House to run midterm operations for Trump, posted on X Tuesday after lawmakers failed to reach the two-thirds threshold required to consider redistricting without a special session.
The Supreme Court’s decision earlier this month to narrow the Voting Rights Act has kicked off a rapid-paced round of redistricting across the South, with Tennessee passing a new map and Louisiana poised to do the same.
A new map in South Carolina would likely lock in a 7-0 House delegation for Republicans, though some of the GOP senators who opposed Tuesday’s vote said the map is no guarantee. Democrats are also bullish that a redraw could put a new seat in play, and the party’s top House campaign arm has begun recruiting in the state, as POLITICO reported earlier this week.
State Senate leader Shane Massey, who was one of the five Republicans who opposed the measure on Tuesday, has begun communicating McMaster’s decision to lawmakers, one person familiar with the conversations said. It’s still unclear if Massey will try to sway Republicans who voted to open the door to a redraw to switch their votes.
Republicans held onto former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s House seat on Tuesday.
Republican Clay Fuller defeated Democrat Shawn Harris in a special runoff election in the state’s 14th Congressional District, giving the GOP another vote for their narrow House majority.
But his margin of victory is on track to be less than half of President Donald Trump’s 37-point win in 2024.
The northwest Georgia district is the reddest in the Peach State, and the slimmer margin had Democrats bullish on their ambitious plans to flip seats in November’s midterms.
Harris ran ahead of Democrats’ recent performances in the district even though he was vastly outspent in the race. GOP-aligned outside groups, combined with Fuller’s campaign, spent more than $1.2 million on the runoff, according to AdImpact, while Harris didn’t receive any air support from national Democratic groups and spent just $300,000. In the short term, Fuller’s win is a boon for Speaker Mike Johnson, who will gain a safe vote for the GOP caucus.
The Illinois primaries have seen gobs of spending, both in the highly watched Senate race and further down the ballot in competitive open House seats.
Groups affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee have poured millions of dollars into key contests, potential 2028er and Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker has found himself at odds with several prominent Black leaders in the state, and generational fights continue to plague the Democratic Party post-2024.
Here’s what POLITICO is watching today.
Can AIPAC avoid another fumble?
AIPAC faced backlash from moderate Democrats last month after inadvertently boosting a progressive candidate in New Jersey who said Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza. It's hoping not to make the same mistake again.
The group is facing a major test of its political muscle in Illinois as Democrats increasingly scrutinize Israel and AIPAC itself. It’s spending heavily in several House races, most notably in the contest to replace retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky in the 9th district.
But Democratic strategists have warned that the group’s attacks on Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss — the grandson of a Holocaust survivor who has criticized Israel — have created a late opening for progressive insurgent Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian-American who’s an even more vocal critic, rather than effectively boosting the AIPAC-preferred candidate, state Sen. Laura Fine. AIPAC has made a sharp pivot in the final stretch of the campaign, turning its focus squarely on Abughazaleh instead.
The big question for Tuesday will be whether that change in strategy happened too late to avoid another embarrassment for AIPAC.
Will JB’s involvement help or hurt him?
Pritzker has been vocally supporting, and heavily funding, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton’s campaign for Senate against Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly. That move has rankled some prominent Black leaders.
“A sitting governor shouldn’t be heavy-handing the race,” Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke, whose caucus is supporting Kelly, told Punchbowl earlier this month. “Quite frankly, his behavior in this race won’t soon be forgotten.”
The worry from Black Democrats is that Kelly and Stratton — both Black women — could end up splitting the Black vote, with Pritzker's endorsement driving that wedge further. That may help Krishamoorthi win the race and kill their chances of electing a Black woman to the Senate this cycle.
Krishnamoorthi has led most public polls of the race and had a big cash advantage early on, allowing him to get up on TV earlier than his opponents. Pritzker’s money has helped Stratton close the gap, while Kelly sits in third in most public polls.
“People are conflicted as to whether or not they should go with the best candidate who they like, or do they go with what the polls are saying as the most viable candidate,” former Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who supports Kelly, said in an interview last week. “That’s the tension and the conflict that I’m hearing kind of across the board, but particularly among Black Illinoisans.”
What do all the races say about the future of the Democratic Party?
Both the Israel debate and racial tensions — as well as the growing generational divide in the Democratic Party — have dominated Illinois’ primary contests.
Tuesday’s results will be another early test, following Texas earlier this month, for where the party is headed as it still grapples with across-the-board losses to Republicans in 2024.
How do the outside influences fare?
More than $35 million has been poured into TV ads on Illinois races, according to AdImpact, with tech interests leading the way: pro-AI and pro-Crypto industry groups have combined to spend more than $15 million. It’s a dizzying sum that has shocked many veteran Illinois political strategists who are long accustomed to bruising campaigns.
Some candidates have openly courted — and practically begged for — support from these groups. Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. — who is running to reclaim the IL-02 seat he once held — used AI in an ad to enhance former Rep. Bobby Rush’s voice (D-Ill.) after it was damaged from treatment he underwent to battle throat cancer.
The groups’ huge spending to get allies in Congress could shape the heated policy debate over how to regulate two fast-growing industries. How well their chosen candidates fare will help guide their future spending later this year.
Who turns out?
Turnout among Hispanic voters was a strong point for Democrats in the Texas primary, not to mention several special elections in recent months, driven by backlash to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement along with continued economic uncertainty.
We will see whether that continues in Tuesday’s primaries, particularly in Chicagoland — which was shaken by a deportation blitz of its own last fall but where most of the primaries are for safe blue seats.
There’s also the question of turnout in primaries where support for Israel has been a major issue. A Senate primary should bring voters to the polls across the state, but POLITICO will be watching for how much higher turnout is in the 2nd, 7th, 8th and 9th districts to gauge how much Democrats’ intraparty disagreements about the issue — and the flood of outside money that has come with that — uniquely drives voting.
Alec Hernández and Jessica Piper contributed to this report.
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