Mississippi
Deep South US state; Governor Reeves called special session to redraw maps after Callais.
Last refreshed: 7 May 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Will Mississippi's special session dismantle the majority-Black MS-2 Delta district?
Timeline for Mississippi
SCOTUS nears ruling on mail-ballot grace
US Midterms 2026South Carolina Senate blocks post-Callais redraw
US Midterms 2026Four states queue maps after Callais ruling
US Midterms 2026- Why did Mississippi call a special session in May 2026?
- Governor Tate Reeves called the session on 5 May 2026 to redraw congressional maps after the Supreme Court's Callais ruling eliminated the VRA Section 2 requirement to maintain majority-minority districts.Source: Lowdown reporting
Background
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves issued a call for a special legislative session on 5 May 2026, the same day as South Carolina's map-drawing announcement, placing the state in the first wave of the post-Callais redistricting cascade. Mississippi's move is particularly significant: the state has four congressional seats split 3-1 Republican, with the single Democratic seat held in MS-2, historically one of the most prominent majority-Black districts in the South.
MS-2 was drawn specifically to provide Black Mississippians majority representation, anchored around the Mississippi Delta, one of the poorest and most majority-Black regions in the United States. Under Callais, the VRA Section 2 mandate requiring that configuration no longer holds, giving the Republican-controlled legislature the legal opening to dilute the district. Any redrawn map that dismantles MS-2's majority-Black core would be among the most consequential single-state redistricting acts of the 2026 cycle.
Mississippi has some of the highest rates of Black population as a share of total state population in the US, at around 38 percent, yet representation has historically been contested at every level. The Callais ruling removes the most established federal constraint on minority district configuration, making the special session outcome one of the most closely watched in the cascade.