LIVE UPDATES
Which states could get new congressional maps in 2024?
An updating tracker of developments in midcycle redistricting.
After the 2020 census, each state redrew its congressional district lines (if it had more than one seat) and its state legislative districts. 538 closely tracked how redistricting played out across the country ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. So everything is done and dusted, right?
Not so fast, my friend. More than a half-dozen states face the prospect of having to go through the redistricting process again, mostly due to federal and/or state litigation over racial or partisan gerrymandering concerns. Both Democrats and Republicans have the opportunity to flip seats in districts drawn more favorably than they were last cycle. For example, Democrats appear poised to pick up at least one seat in Alabama and could theoretically get more favorable maps in Louisiana and Georgia. Republicans, meanwhile, could benefit from more favorable 2024 maps in North Carolina and New Mexico.
We’ll be using this page to relay major developments in midcycle redistricting, such as new court rulings and district maps, and examine how they could affect the political landscape as we move deeper into the 2024 election cycle. We’ll predominantly focus on congressional maps, but will share the occasional key update on conflicts over state legislative districts.
Some key states to watch:
Where things stand in Alabama
Alabama is furthest along in terms of having a new congressional map for 2024. Back in 2021, the Republican-controlled legislature drew Alabama a congressional map that had six majority-white seats and one majority-Black seat — despite it being possible to draw a map with two majority-Black districts. Voting-rights advocates sued, and in January 2022, a federal court agreed that the map discriminated against Black voters and had to be redrawn.
Alabama appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in June 2023, the court handed down a landmark decision that upheld the Voting Rights Act and confirmed that Alabama had to redraw its map. In July, the legislature did so — but the new map still didn’t have a second majority-Black seat. The lower court quickly struck down that map too, and the Supreme Court rejected a Hail Mary appeal of that decision.
The lower court will now choose a new congressional map for Alabama, to be used in 2024. A court-appointed special master has drawn three possible options, all of which would create a second majority-Black seat. And because Black voters so consistently vote Democratic, in partisan terms, that means Democrats will almost certainly pick up a House seat in Alabama next year. In the three proposals, the new 2nd District would have voted for President Biden by anywhere from 10 to 13 percentage points.
Legal approaches in race-based redistricting lawsuits
In federal cases where plaintiffs argue that a state’s map discriminated against a minority group, we’re predominantly seeing two grounds for suits. First, cases can center around alleged violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits electoral practices that discriminate against a racial or language minority group. In Section 2 cases, the plaintiffs will argue that district lines diluted the voting influence of a minority group, often by “cracking” it to spread it across multiple districts or “packing” it into fewer districts.
Cases can also focus on alleged violations of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th and 15th amendments. Specifically, claims are built around the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which courts have ruled protects against the improper use of race in drawing districts — racial gerrymandering — and the 15th Amendment’s protections against limiting voting rights based on race. These legal frameworks are related — the VRA was created as an enforcement mechanism for the 15th Amendment — so these lines of argument can overlap.
Where things stand in Florida
Part of Florida’s congressional map could also change due to litigation over racial discrimination. Under the state’s old lines, a majority-minority 5th District with a plurality-Black population had stretched from Tallahassee to Jacksonville that regularly sent a Black Democrat to Congress. However, under pressure from Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida legislature drew a map that dissolved the old 5th, leaving only majority-white and solidly Republican seats in northern Florida.
In early September, a lower state court ruled that the map violated the state constitution because it had diminished the ability of Black voters to elect a candidate of their choice. In some ways, the ruling wasn’t a shock because the state had agreed in court proceedings that the map ran afoul of the state’s anti-diminishment provision. But the state argued that provision should be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, signaling a conservative line of argument against voting rights protections that could appear in future state and federal cases.
While unsuccessful in lower court, the state’s argument might find more receptive judges higher up the Florida judicial ladder. Although a state appeals court will consider the case first, it will likely end up in front of Florida’s Supreme Court. And the high court could decide for the state, especially because DeSantis’s five appointments to the court’s seven seats have made it much more conservative. In the meantime, civil rights groups have launched a second track of litigation in federal court, where they argued in late September hearings that the map violated the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Where things stand in Georgia
Similar to Alabama and Louisiana, Georgia’s congressional map faces a legal challenge in federal court that claims its district lines dilute Black voting power, in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The current map has four districts in which Black voters make up a majority or close to one, but the plaintiffs argue that because Black residents made up a significant portion of Georgia’s population growth — they now constitute one-third of all Georgians — the state should have one more district in which Black voters have sufficient clout to elect a member of their choice. A new map would probably create an opportunity for Democrats to pick up a seat; Republicans currently hold a nine-to-five edge in the state’s 14-seat congressional delegation.
However, the Georgia case is well behind the timelines in Alabama and Louisiana for any sort of final resolution. A lower federal court heard the case in early September and the judge told both sides to expect a ruling by Thanksgiving. But even if the lower court sides with the plaintiffs, the state would likely appeal, so it’s difficult to know just how long this process may take, much less what the result will be.
Where things stand in Ohio
Ohio’s 2024 map is set, and it will be the same congressional district map as 2022. But the path Ohio took to this outcome was anything but straightforward. In November 2021, the Republican-controlled state government enacted a map where the GOP might have won as many as 13 of the state’s 15 districts. But in January 2022, the Ohio Supreme Court struck down the map as a partisan gerrymander, placing the map in the hands of the Ohio Redistricting Commission. With a 5-2 edge on the board, Republicans passed a second map in March 2022 that still gave the GOP a good chance of capturing at least 10 districts, if not more. Although the state’s high court ruled that this map was also unconstitutional in July 2022, by then the timeline for the case left the second map in place for the 2022 elections, in which Republicans won 10 of the state’s House seats.
The same map will now be used in 2024, too, after the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed legal challenges to the map in September. The plaintiffs who opposed the map had themselves sought a dismissal because they were less likely to have success before the state’s high court after the 2022 midterms, when Republicans captured a firmer majority with the retirement of Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who’d ruled against the state’s maps. If the mapmaking process had reopened for 2024, Republicans may have drawn lines even more favorable to the GOP. Under Ohio law, a map passed without bipartisan support can only remain in effect for two election cycles instead of a full decade, so because no Democrats supported the map currently in use, it will remain in effect through the 2024 election and then need to be redrawn before the 2026 election.
Before then, however, the state’s redistricting process could change due to a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment that proponents aim to put on the November 2024 ballot. The proposal would implement a 15-member commission made up of Republicans, Democrats and independents, with bans against the participation of recent officeholders, lobbyists or party officials. The amendment also includes measures against partisan gerrymandering.