As a result of Thursday’s landmark Supreme Court ruling on congressional district lines, House Democrats are in a much stronger position to either reduce their already slim minority next year or retake control of the chamber in 2024.

In Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court ruled that the initial congressional map created after the 2020 Census violated the Voting Rights Act and ordered Alabama to redraft its map by a 5-4 vote. The court mandated the construction of “an additional black majority district to account for the fact that the state is 27% black,” according to CNN.

According to the Daily Caller, the Cook Political Report has updated five House seat contests:

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.

Republicans hold 222 of the 435 voting seats in the House, compared to Democrats’ 212.

Republicans currently hold a 4-seat advantage in the House of Representatives. If Democrats were to win all five of the races that recently flipped in their favor, they would regain control in 2024.

Republicans are concerned despite the fact that there is still a long way to go before the election next year.

“For now, we are making five House race rating changes,” the Cook Political Report noted on Twitter.

Here's the kind of map we're probably looking at in Alabama next year. https://t.co/hlwl6baT0R pic.twitter.com/fPlRz0ATA3

— Nathaniel Rakich (@baseballot) June 8, 2023

David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report wrote, “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.”

The Cook Political Report downgraded three additional seats in various states to “Toss Up” status in a subsequent update.

Two of these seats are the 5th District of Louisiana, which is currently held by Republican Representative Julia Letlow, and the 6th District, which is currently held by Republican Representative Garret Graves. Notably, Graves participated in recent crucial negotiations on the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which addressed the problem of raising the debt ceiling, as one of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s main negotiators.

More on this story via The Republic Brief:

“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 Caller noted. CONTINUE READING…