Florida locks its map for November

The Florida Supreme Court declined jurisdiction over the Fair Districts challenge to the state's 24R-4D congressional map on Wednesday 10 June, voting 6-1 to leave the map standing for November⁠¹. The Fair Districts amendments are Florida's constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering, added by voters in 2010. the Court did not rule on whether the map breaches that ban; it held that the First District Court of Appeal, an intermediate appellate court, must hear the case first.

Justice Jorge Labarga, the only one of the seven justices not appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis, dissented alone, arguing the Court had jurisdiction and that no chance to review the map before the election would now remain⁠². Three days later, at noon on Saturday 13 June, the US House candidate qualifying deadline closed, fixing the field before any further appeal could be heard. Equal Ground Education Fund's challenge continues at the First District Court of Appeal, but it can no longer deliver a 2026 remedy.

The lock matters because of where the map sits in the national tally. Cook Political Report, the nonpartisan forecaster whose ratings are the industry reference, absorbed the post-Callais Louisiana and Alabama maps into its 9 June baseline: Democrats favoured in 206 seats, Republicans in 211, with 18 toss-ups⁠³. The 2025 Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais removed the Voting Rights Act requirement to draw majority-Black districts, and Louisiana's legislature then erased the majority-Black seat held by Cleo Fields, flipping it from Solid Democrat to Solid Republican. If the Alabama map also survives, after the Supreme Court stayed the injunction against it on 2 June, Democrats drop to 205.

Banked seats do not decide the chamber. Cook still favours Democrats to take the House at a D+6.6 generic ballot, the average margin by which voters say they prefer a Democratic over a Republican candidate. The locked seats are settled losses no wave can reclaim, because the map holds until the next census; only the 18 toss-ups can still move in November. The harvest narrows the Democratic path without closing it.