In the days following the Supreme Court's April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais — which gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and struck down Louisiana's congressional map containing two majority-Black districts — President Trump publicly demanded that Republican-led state legislatures redraw their congressional maps mid-decade, even at the cost of suspending or repeating already-active primary elections.
On Truth Social, Trump wrote: 'If they have to vote twice, so be it. We should demand that State Legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done.' He added: 'The byproduct is that the Republicans will receive more than 20 House Seats in the upcoming Midterms!' The 20-seat figure is significant: the projected House majority margin in the 2026 midterms is small enough that a coordinated mid-decade gerrymander across the targeted states would, by Trump's own framing, decide control of the chamber before any votes were cast.
The states moving in coordination with Trump's directive include Louisiana (Gov. Jeff Landry suspended primaries May 1), Florida (Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new map May 4 that gives Republicans 24 of 28 seats), Alabama (Gov. Kay Ivey called a special session to eliminate both majority-Black congressional districts), Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Marc Elias (Democracy Docket): the cumulative effect is 'both a redistricting power grab and a dry run for authoritarian election subversion this fall.'
The coordination — a Supreme Court ruling, a presidential directive, a governor's executive order to suspend an active election, a series of GOP state legislatures convening to redraw maps mid-decade, and a public framing of the result as a fixed 20-seat House gain — is unprecedented in modern U.S. history. The Voting Rights Act's Section 2, which restricted racial gerrymandering, was the legal foundation that made the 2022 Allen v. Milligan decision possible (the same decision that originally compelled Louisiana's two-majority-Black-district map). Callais reverses that foundation, and Trump's directive applies the new latitude as fast as possible to convert it into seats before the November election.
Correction (September 30, 2026): this entry dated the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais decision to May 1, 2026. The opinion says it was decided April 29, 2026; the date has been corrected.