VoteHub's analysis finds Republican redistricting efforts in the South after the Supreme Court's Louisiana v Callais ruling have mobilised Black voters in the 78 Black Belt counties it tracked, with all but one county shifting left in partisan turnout compared with 2024. After the court decision effectively gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in late April, state legislatures in Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama rapidly pushed new congressional maps, and Mississippi's governor urged a redraw before the midterm elections. Majority-Black counties that voted after the Callais decision recorded a clear surge in participation; Alabama's Greene County exceeded 50 percent turnout and showed a 27.6 percentage-point positive turnout differential. Alabama's Bullock, Lowndes, Macon and Montgomery counties, targeted by redistricting in the state's second congressional district, also posted significant turnout gains. In Louisiana Black voters made up 35.7 percent of the primary electorate despite comprising 32.1 percent of the population, and 30.9 percent of Black voters cast ballots in the primary, 3.2 points higher than white voters. By contrast, Mississippi and North Carolina held primaries before Callais and saw majority-Black counties outpace statewide turnout by only 1.1 points on average. The analysis ties targeted Republican mapmaking to higher Black turnout and a leftward shift in those counties, a pattern that could shape congressional contests if similar redistricting pushes continue ahead of the midterms.
