Blue Tsunami aftermath fuels redistricting talk and White House strain
politicsNov 9, 202620438
Voters in the 2026 midterm elections handed Democrats control of both the House and the Senate and a majority of state legislative chambers, governorships, and attorney general offices, in a sweep Slate calls unprecedented in generations. A Democratic National Committee memo circulated Wednesday credited voters of color as "the driving force" behind the victory. Republican officials had spent 2025 and early 2026 redrawing maps after the Trump Justice Department in July 2025 pressured Texas to break up majority-Black and Latino districts and after Donald Trump urged states to redraw maps to gain seats; Texas leaders including Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton were among Republicans who nevertheless lost key races. In April 2026 the Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais overturned key protections of the Voting Rights Act, with Justice Samuel Alito writing that maps violate the VRA only if there is an "objective likelihood" of intentional racial discrimination, a standard critics said greenlights partisan gerrymandering that dilutes Black political power. Between 2024 and 2026 Republican-led states reassigned over 25 million people, about 7.5 percent of Americans, into different congressional districts, prompting experts to warn that many members of the Congressional Black Caucus could be endangered absent a large Democratic turnout. Preliminary data from the University of Florida Election Lab show roughly 48.8 percent of eligible voters participated in the 2026 midterms, the second-highest midterm turnout in over a century, and early reports say Black voter turnout surged to levels comparable to Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign.
