WASHINGTON — Mass voter challenges are likely to occur in the 2026 midterm elections, the Brennan Center for Justice warned Tuesday, with the potential to “undermine the democratic process.”

President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have been laying the groundwork for questioning the election process in state after state, as Trump has made “election integrity” the centerpiece of his recent domestic policy initiatives, including in a July 16 address to the nation. 

The center, at NYU School of Law, found in a report Tuesday that more than 185,000 challenges to voter eligibility were filed by private citizens in 2024, though “the real number is likely higher” since many election officials either were not contacted or sent incomplete responses to an inquiry. The center is regarded as left-leaning.

Mass challenges are a fairly recent development, spurred by improvements in election technology and transparency. Thousands of votes now can be challenged at once.

They’ve rarely been successful, but experts worry they create voter doubts about whether elections are being conducted fairly. Historically such challenges have also often been used to suppress the votes of people of color, a separate brief said.

“Eligible voters facing challenges sometimes don’t vote simply because the process is too confusing. Responding to a challenge requires numerous steps that can trip up voters. They may not understand their options for verifying their identity,” said the report by Brennan Center Counsel Andrew Garber.

Garber found that “mass voter challenges have become a key element in the campaign to use election integrity as a pretext for voter suppression.”

In 2024, he found, election deniers lodged challenges, “in addition to spreading lies about widespread voter fraud, refusing to certify elections, discrediting voting machines, engaging in bad faith poll watching, filing frivolous lawsuits, and threatening election officials with physical harm or criminal penalties.” 

This year, Garber warned, such challenges are likely to be an “integral strategy in the playbook to undermine the democratic process.”

Mass challenges, he said, “add basically zero value to elections while creating new costs.”

One big worry, though: “There are instances of eligible voters being removed from the rolls and learning of their removal after the deadline to register and vote in the next election,” the report said. “As is often the case with voter suppression, vulnerable individuals frequently suffer the effects.”

Mullin threats

The Trump administration is pushing state officials to examine their voter rolls and tighten their election security, thus opening the door for the help of the federal government in conducting mass challenges, the report predicted.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said last week that hundreds of thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote in California, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania and threatened to prosecute election officials in states that don’t “participate in securing the elections” ahead of the November midterms. He has not specified the source of his data.

Trump has demanded Congress require people to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote and photo IDs at the polls. So far, lawmakers have so far been reluctant to approve the SAVE America Act that in various versions would restrict voting, and it remains stalled in the U.S. Senate. 

Trump and his allies have maintained for years the 2020 election was marred by voter fraud. No evidence of any widespread fraud has been found.

Election officials have largely maintained their rolls are accurate and up to date.

“In most states, list maintenance practices tend to keep pace with natural changes in voters’ lives, such as moving,” said a report this month by the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research.

Mass challenges

Recent mass challenges have rarely been successful.

The report cited efforts in Georgia, Michigan, Texas, Florida and Iowa in 2022.

“These challenges were widely rejected for lack of evidence or failure to comply with state law,” the Brennan Center found.

In 2024, Brennan’s research found that private citizens filed at least 185,232 voter challenges in the states studied. Of those, the center found officials accepted at least 5,477. That means they may have removed the voter from the rolls, declared them inactive or taken other steps to make it difficult for them to vote.

Researchers sent requests to Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas and to numerous counties in those states, the report methodology said.

“One takeaway is evident: With only around 3 percent of challenges clearly accepted, challenges contributed little to list maintenance in 2024,” Brennan found.

For instance, Georgia got in touch with about 875,000 voters in 2023 who had moved or had not voted for several years. That was more than a hundred times the number of Georgia voters who were successfully challenged the next year.

The center compiled the report by sending public records requests to 42 state and local government entities. It asked for any documents involving voter challenges in 2024 and how officials dealt with those challenges. It also looked at court filings, public reporting and election board meetings.

“Acquiring a complete record of challenges is impossible: They are often made ad hoc, officials may have no obligation to track them, and the records produced are often incomplete,” the center noted, adding that some officials refused to provide records or said they got no challenges.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision makes it easier for political parties to put their stamp on the most important campaigns, just as the struggle heats up for control of Congress in the midterm elections. 

Simply put, the ruling “gives the parties more money to spend,” said David Kolker, senior counsel at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.

In a 6-3 decision on June 30, the court struck down limits on how much political parties could spend in coordination with specific candidates.

But will it make a difference, particularly in mega-money Senate races in Ohio, Maine, Texas, Iowa and elsewhere? 

In sheer dollars from big donors, maybe not. In strengthening the role of political parties and how they use those dollars to help campaigns, yes.

“The idea there will be an explosion of money that’s not already going to be there, I don’t really see that. The super PAC money is already there,” said Brendan Glavin, director of insight at OpenSecrets.org, a nonpartisan group that tracks and analyzes money in politics. Super PACs can spend unlimited sums independent of campaigns.

Don Levy, Siena Research Institute director, saw evidence in July of how eagerly the parties could spend money — or yank it back. 

Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner’s now-defunct campaign was rocked by new allegations of sexual abuse, which he has denied. Siena conducts polls in Maine.

When the scandal broke, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand, both of New York, issued a terse three-sentence statement in response.

One of those sentences was: “The DSCC will not invest in the Maine Senate race if Platner remains on the ballot.” 

That indicated “money is top of mind” for the party, Levy said. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is seeking reelection in a state that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won in 2024 by 7 points.

The court and big money  

The Supreme Court has been methodically tearing down barriers aimed at limiting big money in politics.

In 2010, the Citizens United decision overturned decades-old restrictions on corporate independent expenditures, allowing them to spend unlimited sums from their corporate profits to support the candidates of their choice.

The ruling led to the creation of super PACs, allowing special interests to raise and spend unlimited funds to boost political candidates.

An analysis by Daniel Weiner, director, elections and government at the Brennan Center for Justice, found that their funding “largely comes from a small group of the very wealthiest donors.”

From 2010 to 2022, super PACs spent about $6.4 billion on federal elections. They spent an estimated $2.7 billion in the 2024 election.

There were, and are, limits on contributions to specific candidates and political parties. Super PACs cannot coordinate with campaigns. 

Until the Supreme Court ruling, there were limits on how much the parties could coordinate. Not anymore.

Parties have “complained about being outspent by the outside super PACs. Whether that’s true or not you could debate,” said Kolker. 

The court decision, though, makes it easier for big donors to funnel money to the parties, knowing the parties can now seamlessly direct the funds to candidates they feel need it most.

Republicans pushed for the ruling, with many in the GOP believing that Democrats had the advantage of obtaining more, often smaller, contributions to their candidates, while Republicans relied on bigger donors who felt more bound by contribution limits and restrictions.

Republicans hailed the decision.

“By striking down these unconstitutional caps on coordinated spending, the Court has restored core political speech and ensured parties can compete on a level playing field,” said a joint statement from Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, who chairs the GOP’s House campaign committee.

Democrats saw things much differently. The ruling “is a win for billionaire donors and special interests who want more influence over the GOP agenda and an invitation for corruption,” said a joint statement from Democratic Party Chairman Ken Martin, Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., who heads the party’s House campaign committee, and Gillibrand.

Maine and other swing states for Senate control

Democrats need a net gain of four Senate and three House seats in November’s elections to win control of those chambers.

The biggest money is likely to pour into a handful of Senate races.

Maine has been a top Democratic target, though the turmoil over Platner’s candidacy makes it unpredictable.

It had been a competitive race. In the Siena/New York Times/Portland Press Herald poll June 19-26 poll, before the latest Platner controversy erupted, he led Collins by 2 points. Trump’s approval rating was 36%. 

Maine Democrats have until July 27 to choose a replacement for Platner, who left the race July 8.

The court ruling is “not going to be a huge game changer for the amount of money flowing into a competitive race. They already have super PAC money, and already have megadonors giving to parties,” said Glavin.

Money could matter more in Ohio, where big spending in 2024 – a non-presidential election record of $483.4 million, according to AdImpact – helped Republicans paint incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, as out of touch with the GOP-trending state. Brown lost to Republican businessman Bernie Moreno by 4 points.

“I think money made a difference last time as they drove up Brown’s negatives,” said Jessica Taylor, Senate and governors editor at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Brown now will be able to tap more party expertise and funding as he runs this year against Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican appointed to the seat in 2025 to replace Vice President JD Vance.

Iowa is a different sort of money battleground. “Money could make a big difference if Democrats spend there,” Taylor said. Democrats are trying to win the seat now held by Sen. Joni Ernst, a Republican who is not seeking reelection. State Rep. Josh Turek, a Democrat, is running against U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, a Republican.

Levy offered this example of where shifting party money could matter. Suppose polls hold up and former Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, remains favored to win a North Carolina Senate seat now held by Republican Thom Tillis, in his campaign against Republican Michael Whatley.

“The national party could say we’ll write off North Carolina because Cooper has a big lead and is extremely well known in the state. It would be difficult to beat him,” Levy said. Maybe they’d direct more money to Texas, where state Rep. James Talarico and Attorney General Ken Paxton were tied in last month’s Siena poll.

The court ruling gives “a lot more power to party leaders who control how these funds are spent,” said Kolker, and probably more clout to Congress itself, making it easier to impose party discipline.

Does big money matter? 

Experts are quick to warn that big money is no surefire guarantee of success.

There are just too many moving parts influencing voters – their economic situation, their views of President Donald Trump and their disillusionment with the political establishment, to name a few.

“You want to have a robust TV program but the political environment is still going to matter in a lot of these races,” said Taylor.

What often matters most for a candidate and a political party is building an image and reputation and sustaining it, which is why in election after election, incumbents usually win.

“There is still an incumbent advantage. There are cycles where voter discontent and frustration reaches a point where the only way to express your frustration is to vote against whoever is in power,” said Todd Eberly, professor of political science at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

Maine provides a strong example of the advantages and disadvantages of money.

Collins has been a senator since 1997. “Collins will play to her strength. The people of Maine, regardless of what the left may say, they feel she has good moral character and is in touch with the values of Mainers,” Levy said.

Democrats will undoubtedly try to tie her to Trump and the Washington establishment. At the same time, he said, “Maine is an inexpensive state and money will fly in there to say Susan Collins is in tune with Maine.”

The race will be a test of all the factors that influence a race, financial and otherwise.

“Candidates who spend more, their probability of winning has increased significantly,” said Eberly. “With one exception. If you’re an incumbent, it (big spending) doesn’t make much of a difference.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s latest shot in a relentless war on how elections are conducted has triggered enormous concern among voting rights activists.

As of Thursday night, the U.S Election Assistance Commission has no members. The White House in an email dismissed Democrats Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland. Republican Christy McCormick resigned, and GOP member Donald Palmer left earlier this year.

Trump’s move guts, for now, a four-member board created in 2002 after the chaos that dogged the 2000 presidential election. That result came down to the vote count in Florida, where the question was debated of whether “hanging chads” on ballots counted or not.

The commission legislation, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002, is designed to have the panel help states establish credible voter registration and voting systems.

Activists saw Trump’s sudden firings as the latest, and perhaps most ominous, chapter in his efforts to influence elections in a way opponents say is meant to help his party in the fall midterms.

To them, it becomes part of a growing list that includes extraordinary congressional map-drawing in Republican-leaning states, a fierce effort to require voters to provide photo ID and proof of citizenship and the Supreme Court’s curtailing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

“Here we go again,” said a joint statement by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Rep. Joe Morelle, D-New York., after the commission decision became public. They’re the top Democrats on the congressional committees that deal with election law.

“Purging commissioners just months before the midterm elections and further gutting support for our state and local elections officials is a blatant part of his plan to politicize our elections and enable more unlawful and dangerous election interference,” they said.

The White House insisted it is interested only in a fair election.

“The Administration from the start has been working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain that mission especially in the midterm elections,” a White House official who asked not to be named told States Newsroom in an email.

Trump’s election orders

To skeptics, Trump’s latest action was part of an ongoing push to influence election procedures – an effort unheard of in modern times for an incumbent president – that shows no signs of abating.

The election commission would not alter the national voter registration form as Trump wanted so that it would include proof of citizenship. Trump issued an executive order requiring proof of citizenship for voters, but a federal judge blocked the effort, saying states and Congress had that authority.

He is also attempting to restrict voting by mail. The Supreme Court last month rejected a bid to bar mail votes from being counted after Election Day. The votes can count as long as they are postmarked by that day.

But the administration is trying another court challenge, aimed at preserving Trump’s executive order telling federal agencies to come up with a national list of documented adult U.S. citizens who could then vote.

The order would also have the U.S. Postal Service establish a system for dealing with mail-in votes from the approved lists. A federal judge has blocked the order. The case could wind up at the Supreme Court later this year.

Can the SAVE America Act be saved?

On Capitol Hill, when Congress returns to work Monday from the Fourth of July recess, House lawmakers will confront how or whether to proceed with the SAVE America Act, Trump’s bid to require voters to show identification and proof of citizenship.

The legislation is expected to go nowhere, since it needs 60 votes in the Senate, which has 47 members who caucus with the Democrats.

Trump, though, has put enormous pressure on supporters to move the bill. “THE SAVE AMERICA ACT’S non-passage is CRAZY, and a serious threat to any politician who votes against it!” he wrote on Truth Social Friday. He explained he will not sign a housing reform bill, which passed Congress by big bipartisan margins last month, in protest. Without his signature, the bill will become law anyway at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

The SAVE America Act has paralyzed the House, as supporters refused to let members consider any other legislation until the chamber passes the act.

Trump has been moving on other fronts. His administration backed a successful challenge to a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a law that tore down decades-old barriers that kept minority voters in the South from voting and gaining political clout. 

The president also energized movements across conservative states to redraw congressional district lines, normally done after censuses in years ending in zero.

Instead, eight states, including Texas, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Missouri have adjusted their maps this year in ways expected to help Republicans.

California and Utah have redrawn maps to create more potential Democratic seats. But all the changes, said the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, have created “a Republican advantage of some size.” 

Trump’s initiatives have sparked bitterness for and against.

“Democracy doesn’t disappear overnight, it erodes piece by piece. SCOTUS weakens voting rights. Trump guts the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission and pushes the SAVE America Act to choke voter registration and fair elections. We cannot stay silent. We must resist,” Rep. Analilia Mejia, D-N.J., said on X.

Rep. Abe Hamadeh, R-Ariz., applauded Trump’s latest action.

“President Trump is right to clean house at the Election Assistance Commission,” Hamadeh said on X.

“For too long, it has enabled weak standards & defended vulnerable machines that fueled irregularities in 2020 & 2022. Rather than address legitimate concerns with transparency & accountability, the EAC circled the wagons & politicized a sacred nonpartisan process,” he said.

Rigged elections?

At the heart of all these efforts is Trump’s long-held view that elections are too often rigged. He made that claim after losing in 2020, despite no evidence of much if any fraud.

Most recently, he alleged rigging in the Los Angeles mayoral primary, where Republican Spencer Pratt failed to advance, topped by two Democrats. Again, there’s been no evidence of wrongdoing.

The independent Election Assistance Commission that Trump gutted helped in establishing the credibility of elections by, in its description, “advancing Safe, Secure, Accurate, and Accessible Elections.”

The Center for Election Innovation & Research has found that over the past 25 years, “states have implemented several innovative policies that streamline the process of voter registration, promote voter list accuracy, and create more options for eligible citizens to register or update their voter registration.”

Among the changes: more online voter registration, same-day voter registration, and automatic voter registration. Forty-six states and Washington, D.C., use at least one of these methods, up from seven states in 2000.

Next steps

The commission’s ability to effect change now appears stymied.

“Congress deliberately structured the Election Assistance Commission as a bipartisan agency to help states administer free, fair, and secure elections,” said Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law.

“These removals leave the agency without leadership and unable to carry out its major responsibilities,” he said.

Trump is using the authority that the Supreme Court appeared to give him in a decision last week allowing him to remove members of independent agencies, except for Federal Reserve governors.

Trump would have to appoint two Democrats as well as two Republicans to the EAC, but they would need Senate confirmation.

Asked if the president planned appointments anytime soon, the White House official said, “The Administration from the start has been working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain that mission especially in the midterm elections.” 

WASHINGTON — The long, often agonizing struggle for Black political clout in Washington faces a new, uncertain and potentially troublesome chapter.

Black political power in the nation’s capital is centered on the Congressional Black Caucus. In the U.S. House, the caucus has enough members to comprise roughly-one fourth of the votes needed to reach a 218-vote majority, including some of the most senior and influential Democrats in Congress. Their numbers and cohesion have been enough to push landmark legislation such as the Affordable Care Act across the line.

But the April 29 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais narrowing the scope of the federal Voting Rights Act, as well as this year’s aggressive Republican redrawing of congressional district lines in conservative states, is a serious threat to Black political momentum. Analysts see more than 20 caucus members possibly at risk of losing their seats.

“Not since Jim Crow have we seen this level of systematic disenfranchisement of Black voters,” Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clark, D-N.Y., said in a statement.

In May, the Congressional Black Caucus joined with the NAACP to demand that Black athletes withhold financial and athletic support from public universities in states where redrawing congressional lines has threatened to unseat Black lawmakers.

Among the schools that could be impacted are historic football powers Alabama and Georgia, as well as Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Louisiana.

Black progress and setbacks

Black progress in Congress was supposed to get rolling after the Civil War when voting rights were significantly strengthened and the first Black senator and House member began serving in 1870.

Then came the end of Reconstruction in 1877, the rise of the Jim Crow segregationist South, and the brutal erosion and in effect the denial of Black voting rights in the South. From 1881 until 1967, the U.S. Senate did not have a single Black member. The House saw a 28-year drought in the early 20th century.

The post-World War II civil rights movement led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a landmark achievement that truly marked the start of a new era for Black political representation — and influence.

Thirteen Black lawmakers created the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971. Today it has 60 members. 

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is the House minority leader, in line to become the first Black speaker if Democrats win control of the House in November.

Caucus members are the top Democrats on four of the House’s committees: Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Financial Services; Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., Homeland Security; Bobby Scott, D-Va., Education and the Workforce; and Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., Foreign Affairs.

A ‘new Jim Crow era’?

The clash over what constitutes fair representation has been raging since the country, now celebrating its 250th anniversary, was created.

The Louisiana v. Callais decision opens a new — or in some eyes, a recycled and disturbing — debate.

“The backward-looking U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana vs. Callais opens the door to a new Jim Crow era by drastically diluting the right of Black voters to choose lawmakers who represent their concerns,” said Karen Dolan, senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal research organization.

She estimated that one-third of the Congressional Black Caucus seats could be at risk, as well as thousands of state and local elected officials over the next few years.

Conservatives offered a different take. Constitutional amendments adopted just after the Civil War, establishing voting rights among other things, “were forged at tremendous human cost to secure a constitutional order grounded in equality before the law—not racial classifications,” said Kevin Roberts, president of Heritage Action, a conservative advocacy organization.

He said the court decision “restores that understanding and reaffirms that the Constitution does not permit sorting Americans by race in the exercise of political power.”

Why the Black Caucus matters

Since the Voting Rights Act and subsequent revisions that until recent years strengthened its provisions — and routinely won bipartisan support — the Black Caucus has acquired leverage from its numbers as well as its generally consistent unity on policy.

Its members, usually almost all Democrats, have for years supported an agenda grounded in civil and worker rights, education and health care.

The Affordable Care Act was the 2010 bill that overhauled the nation’s health care system, creating new help for people to buy insurance and adding strong consumer protections.

“Without representatives of Black voters from the South, there would be no ACA,” said Bishop William Barber II, founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. The bill passed the House by seven votes. No Republicans voted for it.

The caucus has also been active in securing funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which the caucus says in its agenda statement “have always been agents of equity, access, and excellence in education – especially for students of color.”

Connected with the caucus is the nonprofit Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which provides scholarships, leadership training, research and other programs. Its annual legislative conference in Washington, scheduled this year for mid-September, is regarded as an important forum for Black policy debate and advocacy. It says its mission is to “advance the global Black community.”

Struggles and victories

The 15th Amendmentn to the Constitution, ratified in 1870, bars federal or state denial or curbs on voting rights because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”  

But once Reconstruction effectively ended in 1877, in many instances so did federal protection for Black voting rights in the South.

“Once U.S. troops withdrew, the federal ability to protect minority voting rights in the South was substantially limited until Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act in 1965,” said a June report by the Congressional Research Service.

Black voting, particularly in the South, was severely curbed, as people in the community could be subject to nearly impossible-to-pass literacy tests, poll taxes, and outright intimidation. 

Democrats controlled much of the South after the Civil War, until civil rights laws eroded its grip starting in the mid-1960s.  “One-party control in many areas, even entire states, meant that the party often wielded at least as much power as the government itself. Even where voter protections were enshrined in law, they could be avoided,” CRS said.

“These and other voting barriers meant that, practically, African Americans remained disenfranchised throughout much of the South.”

The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s spurred radical changes. In January 1964, the 24th Amendment was ratified, banning the poll tax or any other tax as a condition for voting.

In August 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which barred barriers to voting such as literacy tests.

It also established “preclearance,” which required the Justice Department to approve any changes in voting procedures in certain places with a history of racial discrimination. 

The act had “an immediate and substantial impact on political participation among African Americans,” CRS found.

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, president of the Joint Center on Political and Economic Studies, which studies Black issues, said that prior to the act, “Black political representation was not just limited — it was nearly nonexistent.”

The civil rights victories changed the political landscape dramatically.

“By dismantling formal barriers to voting, it opened the door to Black political participation and, over time, increased representation,” he said.

But in recent years conservatives gained more clout in courts, and in 2013, the Supreme Court virtually ended preclearance. 

In April, the Callais decision allowed an effective end to districts drawn largely to include more minority voters. The law, said Justice Samuel Alito, has been too often viewed by courts “in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”

A cascade of redrawn seats

Many conservative states have moved quickly to draw new districts, districts where Black incumbents or candidates are likely to find it more difficult to win.

Without Voting Rights Act protection, “Republicans now have the ability to move forward with a nationwide scheme to rig congressional maps in their favor—to manufacture more districts for themselves by eliminating majority-Black districts, while stripping away the ability to challenge those racist, anti-Black maps in court,” said Black Caucus Chair Clark.

Louisiana redrew its districts. At the moment, it has four Republican and two Democratic congressmen. After redrawing one of the majority-Black districts, it’s likely to have five Republicans and one Democrat following this year’s election.

Rep. Troy Carter, D-La., a Black Caucus member whose New Orleans area district was retained, noted that about one-third of Louisiana’s population is Black.

“As a matter of fairness and representative democracy, African American voters should have a meaningful opportunity to elect candidates of their choosing,” he said in a statement. 

Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson, the House speaker, had a different view.

“The court restored a simple but profound truth, yes, the Constitution protects every American equally, and that’s a very important concept for us to maintain,” he told reporters. 

“Democrats spent decades trying to engineer electoral maps that divided Americans, and this decision from the Supreme Court hopefully ends that terrible practice once and for all,” he said.

Other states moved fast to effect changes favorable to Republicans. Tennessee officials chopped up a predominantly Black district in the Memphis area. Florida went ahead with a new map that could give the GOP a net gain of four seats in that state.

In Alabama, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the state to use a map that would redraw and effectively eliminate one of the two majority-minority districts.

How much lost clout?

Judging how much the Black Caucus could shrink, if at all, is difficult because different House races are influenced by a variety of factors, many local.

All of this year’s redistricting efforts have resulted in two states with maps that could help Democrats, while eight new maps give more edges to Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

For Republicans, the center sees gains of up to four seats each in Florida and Texas, and one seat each in Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Alabama and Tennessee. Democrats stand to gain as many as five seats in California and one in Utah.

While all that gives Republicans an advantage, the analysis notes that “the House map is not red enough to protect Republicans from what appears to currently be a bad political environment. We continue to favor Democrats to flip the House in November.”

The House currently has 218 Republicans, 212 Democrats and one independent who usually sides with Republicans. There are four vacancies.

Beyond the voting rights debate, the independent analysts offer this reminder when handicapping upcoming elections: It hasn’t been unusual in recent midterm elections for voters to turn against the party in the White House.

In Trump’s first term, Democrats gained 40 seats in the midterm election. The Black Caucus gained nine new members.