Swing State GOP Governor Won't Redraw Congressional Maps to Help Republicans in Time for 2026 Midterms
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday that struck down racially drawn congressional districts, Republican legislatures in some states are acting quickly to come up with new maps before the November midterms.
The swing state of Georgia won’t be one of them.
Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Friday effectively ruled out drawing a new congressional map in the Peach State that could help his party maintain its precarious House majority, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In other Southern states, it’s a different story after the Louisiana v. Callais decision, which centered on the requirements of the Voting Rights Act.
Louisiana, the state where the Supreme Court case originated, is moving ahead with new maps, according to ABC News. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill announced the Pelican State’s primary election, scheduled for May 16, will be postponed so a new congressional map could be drawn, ABC News reported.
A new map, drawn by a Republican-controlled legislature, could add two likely Republican seats to the state’s congressional delegation.
Other states expected to draw new maps are Alabama and Tennessee, according to ABC News, while South Carolina is also a possibility.
Florida, with a Republican legislature and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, wasted no time. Within hours of the court’s decision on Wednesday, both its House and Senate approved a new map, according to WPBF-TV in West Palm Beach.
The Sunshine State’s new map could give Republicans four more seats in the U.S. House, according to Politico.
In neighboring Georgia, Kemp explained his reluctance against redrawing the map by noting that early voting in the state congressional primaries has already begun. The early voting window is April 27 through May 15, according to a state website.
However, Kemp praised the Callais decision, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, saying it “restores fairness to our redistricting process and allows states to pass electoral maps that reflect the will of the voters, not the will of federal judges.”
He also left the door open for a new congressional map to be drawn this year that would be in effect for 2028.
“Voting is already underway for the 2026 elections,” Kemp said, according to the newspaper. “But it’s clear that Callais requires Georgia to adopt new electoral maps before the 2028 election cycle.”
Georgia’s current congressional delegation in the House consists of nine Republicans and four Democrats, according to Ballotpedia.
As CNN noted in a report last week, Republicans control the House by a 218-212 majority, with the help of one independent who caucuses with the GOP. That means a handful of seats changing hands in November could change control of the House for the rest of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Kemp’s decision will likely represent another chapter in his occasionally fraught relationship with Trump.
The two men soured on each other in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Democrat Joe Biden won Georgia’s Electoral College votes by a tiny margin and Trump cried foul. He got no support from Kemp’s administration, though, and went so far as to demand Kemp resign.
When the rift between Trump and Kemp helped Democrats win runoff races for both the state’s U.S. Senate seats in January 2021, it gave the party control of the U.S. Senate that it held for Biden’s four years in office.
In the 2024 election cycle, Kemp declined at first to support Trump’s comeback bid, telling a reporter he cast a blank ballot in the state’s presidential primary, according to NPR.
However, he later supported Trump as the Republican nominee, Fox News reported at the time, telling the network’s star host Sean Hannity that “we got to win.”
“I’ve been saying consistently for a long time, we cannot afford another four years of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And I think, you know, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz would be even worse,” he said as the Democratic National Convention closed.
“So we need to send Donald Trump back to the White House. We need to retake the Senate. We need to hold the House. We need to hold our legislative majorities that we have in the great state of Georgia. And it takes hard work. That’s what we’ve been doing.”
That November, Trump won Georgia and every other swing state on his road back to the White House.
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