Redistricting could play a key role in the fight to control the House
While congressional redistricting typically only happens every 10 years, coinciding with the U.S. Census, five states nevertheless changed their congressional district lines since the 2022 midterm elections due to court-ordered redistricting. These changes can greatly impact the race for control of Congress, since even small shifts in district lines can change the partisan lean of those seats in big ways. Move a boundary a little bit here and a little bit there, and all of a sudden a district that was solidly Republican is now a toss-up (or the other way around). This is even more true in cases where a state's map saw more radical alterations.
In three states, redistricting was mandated under the Voting Rights Act, which in some cases requires the creation of majority-minority districts. Alabama and Louisiana each saw their congressional maps struck down and redrawn to include an additional majority-Black seat, both of which are likely pickups for Democrats. In Georgia, despite redistricting that boosted the number of Black voters in an Atlanta-area district, the new map isn't likely to result in any changes to the state's congressional delegation.
In North Carolina and New York, state supreme courts overturned prior maps as unconstitutional and allowed their state legislatures to redraw the lines to be more favorable to one party or the other. While North Carolina's state legislature aggressively gerrymandered their new map in favor of Republicans, New York's state legislature left their lines mostly unchanged, making tweaks that only minorly benefit Democrats.
All told, Republicans stand to pick up three to four seats in North Carolina thanks to redistricting, while Democrats look positioned to grab two across Alabama and Louisiana. The smaller changes in New York could also help Democrats in a number of competitive races there. Given the tight margins in the current Congress, control of the House of Representatives could ultimately come down to the changes to these states' congressional maps.