189 Days to Go: 189 Days to Go: Calendar versus court

Virginia's Supreme Court heard the redistricting appeal on 27 April but did not say when it would rule. Candidates must file for Congress by 25 May, just 28 days away.

If no ruling arrives by then, candidates will sign up under the existing Republican-leaning map and the new district plan becomes irrelevant to the 2026 election, whatever the court eventually decides. Read full version ↓

Cook Political Report moved five Virginia congressional seats toward Democrats on 27 April, assuming the redistricting referendum will ultimately survive the legal challenge. Sabato's Crystal Ball made a similar move on 21 April.

Both organisations stated the ratings are conditional on the referendum surviving Judge Hurley's block. If the Virginia Supreme Court upholds the injunction, all five ratings reverse before a single candidate has filed. Read full version ↓

Four federal courts dismissed Department of Justice voter-data lawsuits in the fortnight after Massachusetts set the template on 9 April, bringing total dismissals to five. California, Michigan, Oregon, and Rhode Island all cited the same problem: the DOJ's lawsuits did not specify which law authorised its demands.

The DOJ says it can refile with better paperwork. The first appeals court test is the 9th Circuit's Oregon hearing in May. Read full version ↓

Common Cause, a nonpartisan good-government group, filed a federal lawsuit on 21 April targeting the entire system the Department of Justice built to collect and centralise voter data. The state cases challenge individual document demands; this one challenges the database itself.

A Common Cause win would shut down the national data collection programme regardless of what happens in the 24 remaining state-level cases. A standing dismissal would confirm the state-level route as the only viable challenge to the programme. Read full version ↓

Governor DeSantis submitted a proposed map on 27 April that would give Republicans 24 of Florida's 28 congressional seats, up from 20 currently. The session opened the next day without waiting for a Supreme Court ruling on minority voting rights that could invalidate the map.

The plan faces two separate legal challenges: the federal voting rights question before The Supreme Court, and Florida's own constitution, which voters approved in 2010 specifically to ban partisan gerrymandering. Read full version ↓

Analilia Mejia won New Jersey's 11th congressional seat 60-40 on 16 April, filling the vacancy left by Governor Mikie Sherrill. The 20-point margin matches the district's baseline rather than replicating the 25-point swing recorded in Georgia's 14th.

House composition narrows to 217 Republicans and 214 Democrats, leaving Republican leaders a margin of three seats for any party-line vote through November. Read full version ↓

Silver Bulletin's polling aggregate reached D+5.8 on 28 April, the highest reading this cycle and a 9.1-point swing from Republicans leading by 3.3 points in January 2025.

Historically, a swing this size at this stage has preceded large midterm seat changes. Brookings Institution models it as 12 to 20 Republican losses; the actual number depends on how efficiently Democratic votes translate into seats on the current gerrymandered map. Read full version ↓

Senator John Kennedy's attempt to attach the SAVE Act's voter-ID requirements to the Senate budget package failed 48 to 50 on 27 April, with Republican senators Collins, Murkowski, Tillis, and McConnell all voting against.

The bill cannot pass through normal channels either, needing 60 votes to overcome a filibuster with only 53 Republicans. SAVE Act floor time now generates campaign advertising material from forced votes, not legislation. Read full version ↓

The Senate confirmed Justin D. Smith to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals by unanimous consent on 20 April, bringing Donald Trump's total of lifetime federal judicial appointments to 271, with 11 nominations left to process.

The pipeline is nearing its arithmetic limit: there are almost no vacancies left to fill. A Democratic Senate after November would close the window on the remaining 11, making those the precise stakes of the November election for the federal judiciary. Read full version ↓

Crypto super PACs have spent over $28 million in the 2026 election cycle. Fellowship PAC's reported $1.75 million advertisement supporting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton apparently never ran, drawing questions from Republican leaders directed at Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Fellowship disclosed only $11 million in its Q1 filing against a publicly claimed $100 million war chest. Its accounting problems are now drawing more attention than the candidates it is trying to support. Read full version ↓

Steve Daines dropped out of the Montana Republican Senate primary, opening the state's first competitive Senate race since 1976. Independent Seth Bodnar, a former university president, leads first-quarter fundraising.

Montana backed Trump by 20 points in 2024, so Republicans should hold comfortably. But with no incumbent and an independent leading on money, the race is harder to forecast than the presidential margin implies. Cook Political Report has not yet moved its rating from Safe Republican. Read full version ↓

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments on 19 May about whether the Department of Justice's voter data demands were legally valid. Five lower courts have already dismissed DOJ suits, all citing the same problem: the government's lawyers did not properly specify which law authorised their demands.

A ruling upholding the lower courts would bind the western states of the circuit to that reasoning. A ruling in the DOJ's favour could revive the programme nationally and push the dispute toward The Supreme Court. Read full version ↓