Nick Corasaniti

And there is a handful of other states that are in a similar position, at least within the primary calendar.

And they're mostly found in the South.

And they had these districts that were at least somewhat protected by the provision in the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court ruled on today.

And those looking just at the calendar include South Carolina, Missouri and Tennessee.

Now it's unclear whether there's the political will or desire to do it immediately in those states, but let's look at Tennessee to start.

Their Republicans have been loud today, including Senator Marsha Blackburn, who's also running for governor, in calling for the state to dismantle its remaining Democratic district ahead of the midterm elections.

Exactly.

Now, they would be in a pretty tight sprint, but with some dramatic action in the state legislature in support of the current governor, they would be able to redraw their maps ahead of the midterms.

So this district in the southwestern part of the state is the lone Democratic district in Tennessee.

It encompasses Memphis and is a majority minority district with roughly 60 percent of a black voting age population and a major black population city like Memphis in there.

So if Republicans were to take a ruthless gerrymander to that city, they'd be splitting apart these black voters into a number of other Republican districts.

Got it.

Yeah, and there's also the cartographical challenge, to use a multi-syllable word there, where when a district is in the corner of a state, it's a lot harder to carve up than if it were in the middle, and you could split it apart like a piece of pie.

So there are both calendar challenges.

geographical challenges and time challenges in Tennessee.

Right.

But Republicans also have a very immediate use of this ruling when it comes to new maps in the midterms, and that's in Florida.

Now, earlier this week, Governor Ron DeSantis introduced a new map, and it's in a very aggressive gerrymander.

It would eliminate four of the eight Democratic districts currently in the state.

Yeah.