Southern legislatures are dismantling majority-Black districts — again

In the wake of a Supreme Court ruling, GOP legislatures in Southern states have moved to dismantle majority-Black congressional districts — moves that, NYT national politics reporter Nick Corasaniti reports, carry direct consequences for the 2026 midterms.

The last time a concentrated, multi-state legislative push dismantled Black majority districts after a Supreme Court opening came in the mid-1990s, following Shaw v. Reno (1993). Before that, the same structural logic animated every Southern legislature between Reconstruction's collapse in 1877 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965: fracture Black voting blocs across multiple majority-white districts so no single district can return a Black representative. The instrument changes — racial gerrymander, literacy test, at-large election — but the operational goal across 150 years has been the same: dilute the translation of Black population into Black representation.

If these maps survive legal challenge and take effect for November 2026, the House seats currently held by Black Democrats in the affected districts are directly at risk. At a moment when House control is decided by single digits, the electoral math compounds the democratic harm.

Watch the federal district courts in each affected state. The speed of emergency injunction requests — and whether judges apply Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) vote-dilution analysis or defer to the new Supreme Court framework — will determine whether any of these maps are blocked before candidate filing deadlines close.