A federal three-judge panel on Tuesday blocked Alabama Republicans from switching to a new congressional map ahead of the state’s November midterm elections, ruling the GOP-backed plan unconstitutionally discriminates against Black voters.
The court issued a preliminary injunction requiring Alabama to continue using a court-ordered map implemented for the 2024 elections. That map includes two congressional districts where Black residents make up a majority or near-majority of voters.
“Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” the three-judge panel wrote.
The Republican-backed map would have consolidated Black voters into a single majority-Black district, positioning the GOP to reclaim a seat now held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures. Alabama Republicans may appeal the ruling directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Figures said he expects the fight to continue. “This is a significant step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go before this fight is settled,” he said.
The ruling deals a setback to President Donald Trump’s push to protect Republicans’ slim U.S. House majority in November. Trump has backed mid-decade redistricting efforts in several Southern states with large Black and minority populations, part of a broader GOP strategy to lock in favorable maps before the elections.
The case dates to 2023, when the same three-judge panel found that an earlier Republican-drawn map intentionally diluted Black voting power. Alabama is approximately 27% Black. The court ordered the state to draw a second district where Black voters held meaningful electoral influence, and a court-selected replacement map was used throughout the 2024 cycle.
Alabama officials moved to reinstate the original 2023 state-drawn map after the Supreme Court issued an April ruling that struck down a majority-Black district in Louisiana and narrowed part of the Voting Rights Act. The high court had agreed to lift the injunction blocking the state map and returned the Alabama case to the three-judge panel for reconsideration under the new legal standard.
The panel found Tuesday that the Louisiana ruling did not change its analysis. The court said continuing to require Alabama to use the existing court-drawn districts would not disrupt the state’s election calendar.
Tuesday’s ruling is part of a wave of redistricting litigation following the Supreme Court’s Louisiana decision, which several Republican-led state legislatures interpreted as opening the door to new maps that could eliminate minority-preferred congressional districts that have historically favored Democrats.
