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Heather Diehl/Getty
Voters are heading to the polls for this year’s midterms, but the electoral maps are shifting under their feet in real time. Last month, the Supreme Court narrowed a provision in the Voting Rights Act that allowed states to consider race when redrawing maps.
That decision set off a mad scramble by GOP state legislatures to alter their maps ahead of November’s elections, a move that could disenfranchise Black voters. It’s also supercharged a redistricting fight that began when President Donald Trump urged states to change their maps to mitigate possible losses in Congress.
Mother Jones national correspondent Tim Murphy describes the redistricting happening in Southern states as “a historic reversal of what the Voting Rights Act brought” and could lead to “homogenous white delegations to the South.”
Until recently, Democrats felt optimistic about their chances of taking back not only the House, but possibly the Senate. But they were dealt a major blow last week when their own redistricting efforts in Virginia were struck down by the state Supreme Court. Similarly, the US Supreme Court paved the way earlier this week for Alabama to revert to an electoral map with a single majority-Black district.
On this week’s More To The Story, Murphy and host Al Letson try to make sense of this unprecedented midterm season, gauge the Democrats’ chances of taking back Congress, and examine how Trump’s threats to the electoral system could play out in November.
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