Supreme Court of the United States
US apex court; six-week run of rulings has reshaped 2026 redistricting, ballots, and campaign finance.
Last refreshed: 1 July 2026 · Appears in 3 active topics
After five election rulings in one term, what's left for SCOTUS to rewrite before November?
Timeline for Supreme Court of the United States
Mentioned in: NRSC moves its ad money in-house
US Midterms 2026Struck down federal limits on party-candidate coordinated campaign spending
US Midterms 2026: Court lifts caps on party spendingCourt keeps late mail ballots counting
US Midterms 2026Colorado shuts last Democratic map route
US Midterms 2026Mentioned in: Sixth Circuit rejects DOJ roll demand
US Midterms 2026What Supreme Court cases will affect the 2026 midterm elections?
What does the SCOTUS Texas map ruling mean for 2026?
Will SCOTUS eliminate mail ballot grace periods in 2026?
Background
The Supreme Court of the United States is the final court of appeal in the federal judiciary, established under Article III of the Constitution in 1789. Its nine justices are nominated by the president, confirmed by the Senate, and serve for life, ruling on the constitutionality of federal and state law, including how elections are run.
The Court has held a 6-3 conservative supermajority since 2020: Chief Justice John Roberts (appointed 2005 by President Bush), fellow Bush appointees Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, and Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Roberts wrote the Court's 2013 Shelby County v. Holder opinion gutting Voting Rights Act preclearance, a precedent that anchored the majority's approach to the run of election-law rulings that followed in 2026.
The Court entered the 2026 election cycle with an unusually concentrated election-law docket. It cleared Texas's congressional map for use in the midterms on 27 April, reversing a lower-court gerrymandering finding, then two days later ruled 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not require states to draw majority-minority congressional districts . It ordered Callais into immediate effect on 5 May, bypassing the standard 32-day remand, and on 12 May vacated the lower-court order requiring Alabama to maintain its own majority-Black district, extending the doctrine to the first state .
The term closed with two more rulings on 30 June. In Watson v. RNC the Court ruled 5-4 that Mississippi may count mail ballots postmarked by election day and received up to five business days later, upholding grace-period laws in 14 states and DC . The same day, in NRSC v. FEC, it ruled 6-3 that federal limits on party-candidate coordinated campaign spending violate the First Amendment, striking the caps for the rest of the cycle, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh writing for the majority . Analysts describe the five-ruling run, covering maps, ballots and money in a single term, as the most consequential for election administration since Bush v. Gore in 2000.