The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Wednesday 29 April in Louisiana v. Callais that Voting Rights Act Section 2 does not require states to draw majority-minority congressional districts (districts where minority voters form a majority of the electorate).1 Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion. The ruling overturns Thornburg v. Gingles, the 1986 precedent that had governed Section 2 districting litigation for forty years.
Three Roberts Court rulings now sit in sequence. Shelby County (2013) gutted federal preclearance. Brnovich (2021) narrowed Section 2 vote-denial claims. Callais retires the affirmative duty to draw majority-minority maps. The Roberts Court has dismantled the VRA's three structural pillars across thirteen years; the same six-justice bloc that decided Callais cleared Texas's PlanC2333 two days earlier on Monday 27 April.
Silver Bulletin's generic congressional ballot, an aggregate of voter party preference in House races, sat at D+5.9 on 6 May, a 9.1-point swing from R+3.3 in January 2025. A D+6 environment historically yields 15 to 25 Democratic House gains. The Council on Foreign Relations now puts the Democratic flip target at roughly twenty-five seats once the redistricting harvest is netted out, narrowing the path without closing it.2
