Trump urges South Carolina Republicans to redraw congressional map

President Donald Trump said he will “closely watch” as lawmakers in the Republican-dominated South Carolina legislature begin redrawing their state’s congressional district map on Tuesday to erase the only Democratic-majority U.S. House seat.

At the same time, Republican officials in solidly red Alabama are moving forward on a redrawn congressional map that would likely eliminate one of the state’s two Democratic-held U.S. House seats in time for this fall’s midterm elections, in which the GOP will defend its razor-thin congressional majority.

This week’s moves in Alabama and South Carolina, along with similar efforts in Louisiana and Tennessee, come two weeks after a conservative majority ruled at the Supreme Court to strike down a key Voting Rights Act protection.

And they’re giving Trump and the GOP a big boost in their ongoing political battle with Democrats to redraw congressional district maps ahead of the midterm elections. At stake in this nationwide redistricting showdown is which party will control the House of Representatives for the final two years of Trump’s second term in the White House.

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In South Carolina, the State Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to agree with the state House on redistricting, which is rare but not unheard of in the middle of the decade. State lawmakers will also need to postpone South Carolina’s U.S. House primary from early next month until August. Early voting in the state primary is scheduled to begin in two weeks.

Republicans in South Carolina appear likely to push a new map that could put longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn, the only Democrat in the state’s seven-person House delegation, out of a job.

Clyburn remained optimistic last week that he could be re-elected.

“I don’t know why people think I won’t get re-elected if they redistrict South Carolina,” Clyburn said in a CNN interview. “I have a district that is about 45 percent African American. I have no idea what the number will be after the legislature is over, but whatever that number is, I will live up to my record and the promise of America.”

In his social media post on Monday night, Trump called on “South Carolina Republicans: BE BRAVE AND BRAVE.”

“Move the US House primaries to August and leave the rest to the same calendar. Everything will be fine. DO IT!” he added.

Trump’s message came a week after five Indiana Republican state senators who helped redistrict congressionally in the deep-red Midwestern state in December were unseated by Trump-backed rivals in the GOP primaries.

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Voters walk into the rain after casting their ballots at a vote center at the Tippecanoe County Historical Society history center during the primary election on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Lafayette, Indiana. (Cara Penquite/AP Photo)

It’s a return to the future in Alabama after the Supreme Court in a 6-3 ideological decision cleared the way for Republicans to implement a map drawn in 2023 that had been blocked by lower courts. The map would eliminate one of the state’s two blue-leaning congressional seats.

of the Supreme Court The decision, passed two weeks ago, reshaped the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act by ruling that race should not force the redrawing of legislative district maps. And the opinion specifically ruled that Louisiana’s congressional district map was unconstitutional.

Last week, the Supreme Court announced its decision as follows: map of louisiana This unconstitutional decision should come into force immediately and the customary procedure of waiting for about a month for opinions to become official should be abandoned.

That cleared the way for the GOP-controlled state legislature to begin the process of reshaping the map, and hearings began Friday.

Republican Governor Jeff Landry, one of Trump’s leading allies, took swift action immediately after the high court’s decision by postponing the US House of Representatives primaries to be held in Louisiana on May 16.

Louisiana Republicans aim to wipe out one or both of the two Black-majority seats represented by Democrats.

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Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R), an ally of President Donald Trump, supports congressional redistricting in his red-leaning state. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Republicans in Tennessee moved even faster.

The GOP-dominated Tennessee legislature on Thursday quickly passed a new map that would eliminate the state’s only Democratic-controlled congressional district and likely give Republicans control of all nine districts.

GOP Governor Bill Lee quickly signed the new maps into law.

Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who represents the crumbling majority-black district, promised legal action.

“Trump knows he has to rig the game to maintain his majority in November. And the TN GOP was willing to comply. This is shameful,” Cohen wrote on social media. “Next stop is the courts.”

In his social media post, Trump praised Tennessee Republicans and called on GOP lawmakers in South Carolina to act “just like the Great State of Tennessee Republicans did last week.”

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In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last week signed a bill into law in the GOP-dominated state legislature that would overhaul the red-leaning state’s congressional districts and add four more right-leaning seats by eliminating districts currently controlled by Democrats.

Republicans currently control Florida’s U.S. House delegation by a 20-8 margin.

Democrats are resisting.

Democrats on Monday filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to halt a Virginia Supreme Court decision that invalidated a ballot measure that would have given their party four more left-wing seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The decision taken last week in Virginia means that the map used in the 2024 elections will remain the same in the 2026 ballot showdowns. Democrats currently control the state’s U.S. House delegation by a 6-5 margin. The map, now flipped, would have resulted in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in the blue-leaning but competitive state.

How did we get here

The fight over the maps flared last spring, during Trump’s first term in the White House, when he floated the idea of ​​mid-decade congressional redistricting, a rare but not unheard-of move aimed at preventing what happened when Democrats regained the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections.

The mission was simple: Redraw congressional district maps in red states to shore up the GOP’s fragile House majority to maintain control of the chamber in midterm elections where the party in power traditionally faces political adversity and loses seats.

Asked by reporters last summer about his plan to add Republican-leaning seats in the House of Representatives nationwide, the president said, “Texas will be the largest. And that will be five.”

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the GOP-dominated state legislature to pass the new map.

But Democratic state lawmakers who broke the quorum for two weeks while fleeing Texas in an attempt to delay passage of the redistricting bill have energized Democrats across the country. Among those leading the fight against Trump’s redistricting was California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.

California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50 in November, a ballot initiative that temporarily sidelined the left-leaning state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and returned the power to assign congressional maps to the Democratic-dominated legislature.

This led to the creation of five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, aimed at countering Texas’ move to redraw its maps.

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at an election night press conference at the California Democratic Party office in Sacramento on November 4, 2025. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo)

But the fight quickly spread beyond Texas and California.

Republican-controlled Missouri and Ohio, as well as swing state North Carolina where the GOP dominates the legislature, drew new maps as part of the president’s efforts.

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But late last year, in a blow to Republicans, a Utah district judge rejected the congressional district map drawn by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternative that would create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the midterm elections.

As previously noted, in December, Republicans in the Indiana Senate defied Trump by defeating the redistricting bill that had passed the state House.