Last year, President Donald Trump set off a nationwide redistricting battle when he urged red states to redraw congressional district maps and hand the GOP a secure majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Blue states were quick to respond with their own redistricting measures, aiming to strip Republicans of House seats. The various redistricting measures have been met with legal challenges in most cases, as well as with heated debate over fairness in elections. Here are the latest updates in the redistricting war.

Florida

Sunshine State Governor Ron DeSantis (R) agreed late last year to convene the Florida legislature in a special session to redraw congressional district maps, pending an expected decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on the Voting Rights Act (VRA). In response, a pair of voters and the National Redistricting Foundation filed a lawsuit attempting to block the likely redistricting. The state supreme court on Friday rejected the challenge. “The Governor has the authority to convene the Legislature in special session by proclamation,” Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz, a DeSantis appointee, wrote. “The Secretary of State is the chief election officer of the state and has the authority to interpret the election laws.”

The decision was unanimous. Justice Adam Tanenbaum, also appointed by DeSantis, concurred in part and dissented in part, agreeing that there was no legal basis to bring the challenge, but averring that the lawsuit should have been dismissed outright, since the court did not make a determination on the merits of the case but only decided that the request to block DeSantis from calling the special session is outside the scope of the lawsuit.

New York

Currently, Republicans hold only one congressional district representing New York City, covering the entirety of Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn. State courts had previously demanded that New York’s 11th congressional district be redrawn, claiming that the vote of minority groups in Staten Island was being unfairly diluted. U.S. Rep Nicole Malliotakis, the Republican who currently holds the district, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in the case.

On Monday, the high court agreed, blocking the redrawn congressional districts from going into effect while Malliotakis’s challenge is still being litigated. Democrat-appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied Malliotakis’s petition. “By granting these applications, the Court thrusts itself into the middle of every election-law dispute around the country, even as many States redraw their congressional maps ahead of the 2026 election,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, joined by Kagan and Jackson. The Democrat-appointed justices also suggested that by accepting Malliotakis’s petition, the court opened itself to addressing every election law dispute across the country. “If you build it, they will come.”

Justice Samuel Alito authored a concurring opinion eviscerating the New York courts for their attempt to redraw the 11th district. “These cases concern a state-court order that blatantly discriminates on the basis of race,” Alito wrote, recounting that the state courts insisted the district boundaries be redrawn so that minority voters could “elect the candidate of their choice,” connecting the district to other minority-majority districts and subsequently diluting the vote of Staten Island voters. “That is unadorned racial discrimination, an inherently ‘odious’ activity that violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause except in the ‘most extraordinary case.’” He added that there is “an unacceptably strong possibility that the applicants’ appeal in the state court system will not conclude until it is too late for us to review the ultimate decision by means of a writ of certiorari, even if it appears that the decision is based on a seriously mistaken understanding of the Constitution.”

Virginia

Redistricting in Old Dominion has captured national headlines for months now. The Tazewell County Circuit Court initially ruled that a planned referendum to approve new congressional district maps — maps which would give Democrats 10 of the state’s 11 congressional districts, rather than the six that Democrats currently hold — was “void ab initio,” since the Democrat-controlled General Assembly violated its own rules and ignored certain constitutional safeguards in approving the referendum. Virginia’s Supreme Court subsequently agreed to take up state Republicans’ challenge to the redistricting measure, but allowed the referendum to proceed as planned.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) then filed its own lawsuit in the Tazewell County Circuit Court, challenging the planned referendum on different legal grounds. Chief Judge Jack Hurley issued a temporary restraining order (TRO), halting any preparations for the referendum until March 18, nearly two weeks after early voting is scheduled to begin, on March 6.

The City of Lynchburg filed a lawsuit requesting legal clarification, as several localities have agreed not to prepare for or participate in the referendum until constitutional challenges are resolved in court. On Monday, a Lynchburg judge ruled that preparations for the referendum may proceed and that constitutional challenges against the redistricting measure will have to be litigated after the referendum.

The Lynchburg ruling effectively returns the situation to the Virginia Supreme Court. Should Virginia voters approve the redistricting measure, the state’s high court may have to invalidate not only the General Assembly’s redistricting push but also the perceived will of voters. “I don’t know that the judge’s decision to dismiss the action today made [the situation] any worse because I think it’s as bad as it can possibly be right now,” said attorney Tim Anderson, who represented opposition to the redistricting in court, according to the local WCYB News outlet. “My goodness, nobody should want this. Democrats, Republicans, whether you’re yes or no for this referendum, you shouldn’t want a chaotic election like this happening.”

“We came to the court for answers. We got the answer of what we need to do right now as a municipality,” said Republican Lynchburg councilwoman Jacqueline Timmer, according to WSET News. “That said, he didn’t rule on the constitutionality aspect of the concerns coming before him, that is going and is before the Virginia Supreme Court.”