by Arjun Singh
The Cook Political Report updated the ratings of five House races across several states in 2024 on Thursday, shifting them towards Democrats after the Supreme Court ruled against Alabama’s redistricting plan.
The Court struck down Alabama’s GOP-drawn Congressional map for the 2022 midterm elections on Thursday, ruling in Allen v. Milligan that the was racially discriminatory and diluted African-American voting strength in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The decision’s implications mean that more House seats in Alabama are likely to be competitive in the 2024 election, with the Cook Political Report reflecting those changes in its ratings.
The new rating shifts Alabama’s 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts, which cover the cities of Mobile and parts of Montgomery, the state capital, from a rating of “Solid R” to “Toss Up.” The new ratings are significant swings from the seats’ previously strong Republican ratings and suggest that Democrats may pick up seats in the newly-drawn districts, whose boundaries are yet to be finalized per the ruling.
“For now, we are making five House race rating changes,” the Cook Political Report wrote on Twitter.
Here’s the kind of map we’re probably looking at in Alabama next year. https://t.co/hlwl6baT0Rpic.twitter.com/fPlRz0ATA3
— Nathaniel Rakich (@baseballot) June 8, 2023
“The landmark decision in Allen v. Milligan could reverberate across the Deep South, leading to the creation of new Black-majority, strongly Democratic seats in multiple states,” wrote David Wasserman for the Cook Political Report.
The Cook Political Report additionally shifted the ratings of three other states’ seats to “Toss Up” status. These include Louisiana’s 5th District, held by Republican Rep. Julia Letlow, as well as the 6th District, represented by Republican Rep. Garret Graves, who recently served as one of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s top negotiators on the Fiscal Responsibility Act to raise the debt ceiling.
Louisiana’s congressional map has not been overturned by any court, and the 5th and 6th Districts had Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI) scores of R+17 and R+19, respectively, during the 2022 midterm elections.
The fifth seat newly rated by the Cook Political Report is North Carolina’s 1st District, which is currently held by first-term Democratic Rep. Don Davis. The seat – with a PVI of D+2 and on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) “Target List” for 2024 – was re-classified as “Lean D,” a gain for the Democrats in their effort to hold the seat.
The rating comes after the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in Harper v. Hall in April that the state’s GOP-drawn Congressional maps were constitutional. Republicans currently hold half of the state’s 14 House districts, with two other seats apart from Davis’ being on the NRCC Target List.
House Republicans currently hold a very slim majority of four seats in the House of Representatives, which has 222 Republicans, 212 Democrats and one vacancy.
Letlow, Graves, and Alabama GOP Reps. Jerry Carl and Barry Moore, who represent the 1st and 2nd districts, respectively, did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Arjun Singh is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “U.S. Capitol” by Ramaz Bluashvili.
