The NPR Politics Podcast - Democrats face disadvantage after redistricting setbacks

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

The U.S. House map looks particularly bleak for Democrats after Virginia’s Supreme Court overturned the map voters approved last month, on top of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act. We discuss where the party goes from here, how Republicans are continuing to bolster their advantage with new districts in southern states, and what it all means for voters.This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, congressional reporter Sam Gringlas, and political correspondent Ashley Lopez.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Sam Greenglass. I cover Congress. And I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. Today on the show, the U.S. House Map suddenly looks much bleaker for Democrats. And Ashley, a couple weeks ago, we were talking about Dems basically fighting to a draw in this redistricting war that President Trump started last summer. But in the last 10 days or so, that has changed in a big way. Can you explain how? Yeah, I think the last time we talked about this, you and I was saying it was a wash. It looked like both parties had drawn maps in a way that basically no one had any significant advantage coming into the midterms. But I did say that there were two major wildcards here. One of them was the Supreme Court was expected at some point to weigh in on a case about the voting rights act. That would possibly create a situation where states in the South maybe had more lanes to redraw districts without having to consider race the way they. used to. That broke for Republicans, and we have started to see some states in the south redistrict. We already have. Tennessee has new maps. But the other thing that happened, that was also a wild card that was looming all of this over all of this was the Virginia State Supreme Court was considering Virginia's referendum. Basically, Virginia Democrats had created for themselves a map that was 10 to 1, 10 seats that favor Democrats to 1 favoring Republicans. And now they're going back to a map that has a more parody for Republicans. I think it's six to five.

Well, and to be clear, Virginia voters approved this new map. And then the Supreme Court came in after the fact and said, no, no, no, this is not legal, basically. Can you explain why exactly the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that way? Basically, what the court took issue with, it's a technicality. It's basically the process that Democrats use through the state legislature. There were some issues that they weren't following the rules closely enough. And so voters weighed in. They voted in support of the referendum. And then based on a technicality, the court came back later and said, no. It's just, it really cannot be overstated the whiplash that Democrats are probably feeling right now. And because voters felt the victory, they were celebrating after

this referendum and thinking that these seats, or at least a few of these seats, were basically going to be theirs. Yeah. And can you imagine how this looks to Democrats who are watching Republicans redistrict all across the country without even asking voters. It's only been Democratic-led states that have, well, I mean, a lot of it is because they're forced to. They have in their constitution these independent redistricting committees that take this work away from lawmakers. So they have just a different structure.

But at least voters in these cases were asked before throughout most of the country. They're not even asked. So, yeah, it is a very weird situation. Well, and so as you mentioned, a number of Republican states are now scrambling after the Voting Rights Act decision from the Supreme Court. to redraw their maps in reaction to that. Sam, you were just in one of those states, Louisiana. Tell us about that and tell us what's going on there. Yeah, it really feels like this redistricting war has entered a new phase. And Louisiana is one of the opening battles in this new era post-Calais,

Calais being that Supreme Court case that gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. And right now in Louisiana, there's just a lot of confusion and uncertainty. The primary season was already underway. You know, in-person voting hadn't started. yet, but tens of thousands of mail ballots were already cast when the legislature and the governor moved to delay the primaries for Congress so that the Louisiana House and Senate could redraw these maps literally in the middle of an election season. And so there's a lot of voters who are going to the polls and they're pulling ballots that have candidates and races for U.S. Congress, but their votes will not count because those elections have been delayed. So there's confusion there. And then there's

also uncertainty about what these eventual maps are going to look like. There's a lot of haggling in the legislature. Will Republicans eliminate just one majority black district? Will they eliminate both of them? As we've heard, Republicans in Washington calling on these states to do in this broader race to win the redistricting war ahead of the midterm. So a lot of open questions here. I mean, we just mentioned a second ago the whiplash Democrats are feeling. Now you're talking about voters who are actually going to the polls and sometimes finding out after the fact after they've already voted that their vote for some of these races is not actually going to count. What did you hear from the voters who are affected? Yeah. So what happens in Louisiana and these other southern states will obviously have

national implications in the bid to control the House next year? But I wanted to understand what it felt like to be in one of these districts where your member of Congress was potentially going to lose their seat. Your district was going to be dismantled. But also you're at the heart of this sweeping landmark Supreme Court case. So I started by going to this morning coffee group that I heard about at a local community center. It's a bunch of seniors. They meet three mornings a week just after like 7 a.m. once they finish working out.

And one of the regulars that I met was a teacher named James Verrett. He's 91. And he told me that this decision really felt like a gut punch. I've been beaten with billy sticks, dogs, and tear gas to fight for voter rights. We move forward. But now the Supreme Court and the state courts are making it back up to where it was. So, you know, what I heard over and over again is that the fight over the Voting Rights Act did not end when it passed in 1965. You know, there's another guy met at the coffee group.

His name is Press Robinson. He's 88. And he actually used Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act back in the 70s to challenge discriminatory districts for seats on the Eighty-Robinson. East Baden Rouge Parish School Board. And he won and was elected to one of these newly created majority black seats. So he's seen the impact of the Voting Rights Act across the South over many years. And then Miles, just a few years ago, Robinson decided to make use of Section 2 one more time. And he actually brought this case that resulted in the current map with two majority black districts, the map that ended up in front of the Supreme Court and led to this landmark decision

dismantling section two. So I asked Robinson, you know, whether he felt more optimistic on the day he first registered to vote back in 1955 or today. Here I was a young man in college, just registered. Now I had a voice for the very first time ever. Today, I thought I had a voice. I thought it had been won. It's just been stripped away.

But I'm optimistic enough to know that the fight has to continue. And it will. I think what Sam is bringing up is really important here. And I'm really glad we're hearing those voices because this started last year with the president saying that he wanted to create more safe seats on a partisan basis for the party. This has been largely talked about as a Republican versus Democratic effort. But because of this ruling from the Supreme Court, there is now. open questions about the ability of black Americans to coalesce political power moving forward. So I think it's easy to conflate the two now, whereas like this is a lane that has been opened up for Republicans, but there are some bigger consequences here, which is the ability of communities to have neighborhoods intact, voting blocks intact moving forward.

And a good example of that is Tennessee. right now, the city of Memphis has been cracked into three. That is a majority black city that now has a harder time creating political power for the future. Well, that's what I was going to say, because it'd be one thing if it was just Louisiana as a result of the Supreme Court, which is what the case focused on was Louisiana's maps. If it was like one representative or two black representatives who were going to lose their seats, but it's not. I mean, it's clear that the South, many states, can you walk us through that? What states in the South, I guess, are we watching at this point that could follow in Louisiana. 's footsteps with new maps. Well, I mentioned Tennessee. South Carolina is another one. Alabama had started talking about this, but they are in a unique position in that they need

basically the Supreme Court's approval because they are locked into a court-ordered map from previous redistricting effort. So I, but the problem for a lot of states is that this court case did come down pretty close to filing deadlines. So, you know, we'll see. I've said this a lot. Those things are movable. Filing deadlines are movable.

legislatures can change that. They can change their primaries as we saw in Louisiana. But for right now, it's looking like mostly South Carolina, Tennessee are the big ones to watch right now on top of Louisiana that because of the Supreme Court ruling felt that it was necessary to redistrict right now. All right. We're going to take a quick break, but more in just a moment. And we're back. Okay, Ashley, you've laid out the landscape for us and all these different states we're watching. But I want to talk brass tacks for a second, just in terms of the 2020. 26 midterms and who is going to control the House after people vote. How have things landed or I guess which party we've talked about that things look bleaker for Democrats, but do we have any way to quantify that in terms of who has actually come out ahead when it comes to redistricting battle? Yeah. So here's the tally so far. And these are estimates, right, because turnout is not a thing we can accurately predict. So as of now, in California, because of a voter referendum and in Utah because of an ongoing legal. matter. Democrats have been able to net themselves about six more seats in Congress that could potentially

help the party come November. Republican states have drawn about 14 seats that could favor their party. So right now, we're looking at a net of eight seats that favor Republicans heading into the midterms, which is sizable. If you think of the margin they have right now, what is it? Like three or five seats, Sam, you cover Congress that that is what the majority looks like right now. So eight seats is not nothing, but it is the high water. mark. So this is assuming that when Republicans redistricted in Texas, for example, the five seats actually become five seats that favor Republicans. I mean, there's some estimate that it's actually more like three or four seats that favor Texas Democrats. Again, that is very much up to what actually happens when voters vote. Right. Same thing with Virginia, right? Where we talk about like the new maps didn't pass. So these four new Democratic keys, but actually many people looking at the current Virginia map think that Democrats have a good shot of at least taking two of the seats that are currently held by Republicans. What other cards other than hoping that Donald Trump is very unpopular and that that manifests in a blue wave do Democrats have at this point?

I think the real question is what cards are Democrats willing to play? Because right now, there are very few cops on the beat. Because of the Supreme Court decision on how states can use race to redistrict, because of the Supreme Court decision on whether partisan gerrymandering is okay, there are very few rules. And we just watched Louisiana cancel house races when mail ballots were already in the field. In-person voting hadn't started yet, but mail-in voting had already started. Ballots had already been sent out. So there are very few rules. It is just a question of what rules lawmakers are willing to follow or not.

So Virginia has a Democratic trifecta. They have the House and the Senate and they have a Democratic governor. There is a lot they could do because states have a lot. lot of power and how they run their elections. And, you know, there's some stuff being floated right now that, you know, it's not worth getting into because none of it is firmed up. But there are a couple of options that Virginia Democrats can play. But there is a political question. Virginia is not California. Virginia is very purple. There are a lot of Republicans there. There are a lot of centrists there. And Spanberger, the governor there, Abigail Spanberger, has to ask herself,

how much political leverage do I have here, much political capital and how much of that political capital do I want to expend on this issue? I will say on the congressional side, Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the House, he is suggesting that he's willing to play pretty aggressively in this game. That's what I was going to ask Sam. I mean, what are congressional Democrats talking about in the last 10 days as the winds have really shifted against them? I think the phrase that minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has used as been maximum warfare. But as Ashley's saying here, there are limits to what they can actually do, at least for this midterm cycle. So some of this might actually happen as we head to 2028 because a lot of

the states where Democrats might be able to eke out more seats have gone to independent redistricting commissions or their legislatures have been hesitant to redraw the maps in this way. And so this might not be a project for 2026, but for 2028 and beyond. Yeah, and something to remember is that lawmakers in these Republican states across the country redistricted only for their congressional seats. They didn't redistrict for state houses. So Democrats don't have more of a disadvantage when you look at state house or state Senate maps. So in places that are close, like there are a couple of states that Democrats are looking at like Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, for example, all the swing states. Democrats have been looking at possibly picking up chambers there, maybe having some trifecta.

power there because as we've seen in a lot of these Republican states where there is trifecta control, states have a lot of power and wiggle room to make a lot of changes to the to the actual structures of their elections to advantage their party or not. It is so crazy. I do feel like it's so tempting as these changes feel like they come every single day to one state, new development, got to keep watching it, see how it affects the House map and all that stuff. But I'm curious for your guys' perspective on the bigger picture here a little bit, it feels, it's a It feels a little odd to me that a couple of years ago we were talking about it was pretty widespread opinion that partisan gerrymandering wasn't great for democracy. And now everyone is just racing to figure out the best and most efficient way to do it.

What do you guys' thoughts on that? I guess big picture democracy right now. I mean, something I've been thinking about since I went to Indiana in the fall for their redistricting battle is you're potentially in a place where you're ending up with all these states where the maps just poorly represent the. constituents that live there, even if the broader sweep of the House majority ends up exactly what it would have been pre all of this redistricting. It is pretty hard to argue that in a lot of these states, people are being represented better by these new maps, whether it's states that have been redistricted by Democrats versus Republicans. They do not meet in many cases the standards for what makes a good congressional district, you know, community of interest, compact. These maps do

not look like that. And it's hard to see a way that we walk back from this. And I, I don't think public opinion has changed about views on gerrymandering. I think even when I went to California and talked to voters about the referendum for Democrats to engage in some partisan redistricting, people who even voted for said, I don't like this. I don't think that this is how our politics should work. And it says not great things about our democracy that voters are in a position where they have to support something that they are philosophically opposed to. You know, this country is going through, I've said this a lot, this country is going through a pretty significant democratic backslide right now. And if you have a system that every voter believes

is wrong, they are philosophically opposed to, they think disenfranchises their neighbors, that is not good. No good can come of that. And the only people who are reaping any benefits are lawmakers, are political parties, political parties that fewer Americans every day associate with. The fastest growing part of the electorate are independent and non-affiliated voters. And yet this scramble right now, it is the

scramble, the fight between these two political parties over who gets to have and keep power. All right. Well, we can leave it there for today. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Sam Greenglass. I cover Congress. And I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. And thank you for listening to the MPR politics podcast.