Inside the effects of redistricting on Tuesday's primary contests

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Not all Alabama, I'm going to talk about Alabama, Alabama right now, races were on the ballot today. Some of those races in Alabama postponed because the state congressional map is being redrawn. This following the Supreme Court's decision on redistricting. I'm sure you read quite a bit about that. Alabama is one of several states in the process of redrawing its maps because of that Supreme Court ruling. CBS News Chief Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford joins us now. Jan, how are states able to enact new maps while voting is either underway or almost underway?

[00:00:33]Well, like you said in Alabama, they approved an an an actual different an election, a special election that'll be held on August 11th and they're planning to use a map that the legislature, the Republican-controlled legislature adopted in 2023 that had six Republican districts and one majority black Democratic district.

[00:00:54]In the wake of that landmark ruling, as you pointed out last month, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, they're trying to redraw these maps whether by having you know, special elections for some of these contested legislative districts.

[00:01:08]So now in Alabama, what's going to happen is is, you know, the message was go vote, don't be confused, but if you're in one of these four legislative districts that the state is now kind of going to reconfigure, then you're going to go back to vote on August 11th. And the state again hopes to use that 2023 map that has that one majority black district instead of two.

[00:01:33]A lower court had blocked that 2023 map, ordered Alabama in 2024 to use a different map with two majority black districts, which provided two Democratic seats and Alabama had four then Republican seats. So the state is now hoping to go back to that 2023 map.

[00:01:51]They're obviously a step ahead. It's easier for Alabama to do this uh in the wake of that decision. The lower court still has to sign off on this, though.

[00:02:00]So, it's not totally clear that Alabama's going to be able to do what it wants to do. Um same thing you're seeing in Tennessee. There are legal challenges going on there, and then the courts in Louisiana, they're hoping to go back to their original map that had just one majority black district. Louisiana, like Alabama, had been ordered to do a new map with two.

[00:02:21]Jan made reference to a US Supreme Court decision, but there was also a recent decision by the Commonwealth of Virginia Supreme Court about a referenda that happened in that state that was overturned, affecting future map drawing in the Commonwealth.

[00:02:36]Yeah, and you know, Major, I think that that decision, which was out of the state Supreme Court based on the state constitution, uh kind of uh reflects where the US Supreme Court uh thinks that these fights should be, not in the federal courts. Federal courts, the the Supreme Court, I believe, has made pretty clear should not be ordering up new maps, trying to draw new maps, appoint special masters to draw up new legislative districts. That belongs uh in the political process. So, you saw in in when that state Supreme Court in Virginia rejected efforts uh looking at kind of how the process unfolded, rejected efforts to redistrict that whole state in a way that would have greatly benefited Democrats, you saw the US Supreme Court unanimously refuse um uh to take that up, to get involved when Democrats appealed to the United States Supreme Court. It's a state It's a state issue, state law, and they're going to stay out of it.

[00:03:30]CBS News uh Jan Crawford, thank you so very much. CBS News Elections and Surveys Director Anthony Salvanto has a closer look at the ramifications of all of the redistricting that's going on this year. He's joined by Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball Managing Editor Kyle Kondik. So, Anthony and Kyle, try to, if you can, and this is a big challenge, net this out based on new lines and what those new lines might create come November. Emphasis on the word might.

[00:03:58]Yes.

[00:03:58]>> We're going to come back to that in a second. But, just to remind people, first of all, how unusual this is. This is unprecedented. We're in the middle of a decade talking about redistricting state to state. But, here's where we are. You may recall Texas redrew its lines, gave itself maybe maybe three to five more Republican seats. California passed that ballot measure giving them three to five maybe more Democratic seats. But, then down the line we had the Voting Rights Act decision that you just heard Jan describe. And that is leading to these redraws all through here potential redraws all through the South. Net net, this is favoring Republicans as you can see from the map with all these potential plus ones. I mean, the argument sort of goes back and forth. Is it maybe nine seats? Is it maybe six seats when this all nets out?

[00:04:44]Kyle, what do you think? You know, obviously we got to have the election first to determine what the actual effect of the redistricting was. My best guess, our best best guess of the crystal ball is Republican gain of seven seats. But, there's a range on that. It could be a little bit lower. It could be a lot higher than that depending on how things shake out. Um, but again, you got to remember that just because you change a map to benefit yourself, uh, it's not necessarily going to do that. And I would specifically look at the Republican redraws because 2026 is going to stress test those maps in a way that they won't necessarily be tested for Democrats cuz this is probably going to be a Democratic leaning year. Because the voters are still there. You just drew different districts around them.

[00:05:22]And so, I mean, take a couple of examples. Like in Texas, the thought may be there's a lot of Hispanic voters that shifted toward the Republicans in the last election. If they stay there, okay, that might benefit the Republicans. But, if they move back towards the Democrats, maybe those redraws don't pan out as well for the Republicans. The other part of this is, Kyle, I think it there just aren't that many competitive House races overall which makes this all the more important, right?

[00:05:48]>> Yeah, I mean, we have 16 toss-up races in our in our in our house ratings.

[00:05:52]>> that up.

[00:05:53]>> You know, out of 435 seats. I mean, it's it's kind of crazy. And the the the toss-ups are really they're they're mostly in states that aren't gerrymandered. So, like Eastern Pennsylvania we're talking about earlier in the show, there's a bunch of competitive seats there. That's a court-drawn map. Iowa, Michigan, Arizona, those are states that don't have partisan gerrymandering. Usually when the gerrymander happens, yeah, there may be some competitive seats, but basically you're just trying to create a bunch of safe seats for yourself and as few as possible safe seats for the other side.

[00:06:20]>> And I'll just >> and Kyle, if I can jump in real quick.

[00:06:22]>> Because we talked to Jan about what happened in the Commonwealth of Virginia. If I remember correctly, that was if that map had held, that new map, which was overturned by the Commonwealth Supreme Court, would have netted Democrats possibly four. That would have changed this mathematics a little bit.

[00:06:36]>> Yep, sure would have.

[00:06:37]>> That's why that decision is so important in the context of this midterm election.

[00:06:41]Yep. Yeah, and you know, one way to look at this is that redistricting happened in three stages. The first stage was all last year. It was California, Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri, Utah.

[00:06:51]That kind of netted out to basically a draw between the two parties. Stage two was Florida and Virginia. Florida's map is still in effect, although Florida has anti-gerrymandering language in its constitution. There's still an active court case there, but the idea was that Florida and Virginia would cancel each other out, but the Virginia map went away. So, advantage Republicans. Then you have the Caillat voting rights decision in which in which Republicans end up gaining a lot from the south. So, that's why, you know, this has gone back and forth as to which side had an advantage. When Virginia passed its map, it looked like, "Oh, Democrats have an advantage." But then Republicans take the lead, the Virginia map goes away.

[00:07:27]So, that's where we're why we're here.

[00:07:28]And just remind people when we talk about that Caillat decision, these are majority-minority districts that are now potentially being drawn away, which will have an effect not just on the composition of Congress, but also on the representation people will argue back and forth within those states. Right.

[00:07:46]Yeah, I mean, you're going to see a a number of black Democrats eliminated.

[00:07:49]Now, um you know, there's partisan gerrymandering going all on all all over the country. And I think what Republicans will say is, "Hey, partisan gerrymandering is allowed. These are not racial considerations. These are partisan considerations, but the net effect is the same." And that reference to the Calais decision, reference to the Supreme Court decision in Louisiana, which reinterpreted our Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Kyle Kondik, Anthony Salvanto, thank you very much.