A three-judge federal panel just dealt Alabama Republicans a major blow, blocking the state from using its 2023 GOP-backed congressional map for the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. Conservative election watchers immediately called for Alabama to take the fight back to the Supreme Court: NOW: A federal court has just INVALIDATED Alabama’s new 6R-1D 2026 redistricting map, likely sending it up to the SUPREME COURT Appeal and OVERTURN, NOW! Alabama had just gotten rid of a blue seat due to racial gerrymandering, but this map should EVEN be 7R-0D GO FOR GOLD… pic.twitter.com/yvxqE48RQx — Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 26, 2026 The ruling means Alabama must continue using the court-approved remedial map that includes two majority-Black congressional districts, a configuration that effectively hands Democrats a second competitive seat in the deep-red state. Alabama officials have already signaled they will appeal directly to the Supreme Court. The backstory here is important. After the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Allen v. Milligan, which found Alabama’s original map likely violated the Voting Rights Act, the Alabama Legislature drew a new plan. That replacement map created a 6R-1D configuration that critics said still fell short of the court’s mandate to create a second district where Black voters had an opportunity to elect their preferred candidate. A federal court rejected the Legislature’s replacement map and imposed its own remedial plan with two majority-Black districts. Alabama has been operating under that court-drawn map ever since. As Alabama Political Reporter noted, the three-judge panel’s Monday decision keeps the court-ordered map in place for the 2026 cycle: Alabama had argued that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais changed the legal landscape enough to justify revisiting the map. The three-judge panel disagreed. As Trending Politics reported, the ruling represents a significant setback for Republican efforts to reclaim a congressional seat in one of the reddest states in the country. The practical effect is straightforward. Under the current remedial map, Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District was redrawn to create a second majority-Black district. That seat flipped to Democrats in 2024, and Republicans have been trying to undo the map ever since. Now the fight moves to the Supreme Court, where Alabama will ask the justices to intervene before the 2026 election cycle locks into place. The timing matters enormously. With midterm primaries approaching and candidate filing deadlines on the horizon, any delay works in favor of the status quo. If the Supreme Court does not act quickly, the court-drawn map will almost certainly be used again in 2026. This is part of a broader redistricting war playing out across multiple states ahead of the midterms. President Trump and Republican allies have pushed for maps that better reflect the partisan makeup of red states, while Democrats and voting-rights groups have used the courts to preserve or expand minority-majority districts. Alabama is arguably the highest-profile battleground in that fight, because the outcome directly determines whether Republicans hold six seats or seven in a state Trump carried by more than 25 points. The Supreme Court appeal could produce a landmark ruling on whether the Voting Rights Act requires race-conscious redistricting to the degree lower courts have enforced it. That question has divided legal conservatives for years. For now, the court-drawn two-majority-Black-district map remains the law of the land in Alabama. The next move belongs to the justices in Washington. Trending Politics framed the breaking redistricting fight this way: A federal court blocked Alabama Republicans from reviving a GOP-friendly congressional map. The ruling keeps in place a court-ordered plan with two majority-Black districts ahead of the midterm elections. The blocked plan was Alabama’s 2023 map, which had already been tied up in voting-rights litigation. GOP leaders argued the Supreme Court’s recent Callais decision opened the door to switch maps again. Under the 2023 plan, Republicans were aiming to erase a Democratic-leaning, Black-majority district in southeastern Alabama. That shift could have given Republicans a chance to add one more House seat. The three-judge panel rejected Alabama’s move and said the state must keep using the map that preserves two districts where Democrats have major advantages. Alabama Republicans are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court. Rep. Shomari Figures praised the ruling but warned that the fight is not over. The setback comes as President Trump has urged Republican-led states to redraw maps and maximize GOP seats. Alabama Political Reporter laid out the local court and election mechanics: A three-judge federal panel issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday morning. The injunction stopped Alabama’s plan to hold new elections under congressional districts Republicans believed could help them gain a seat. The Supreme Court had cleared a path for Alabama to try using the 2023 map again. That was despite the same three-judge panel previously finding that the map failed to remedy a Section 2 Voting Rights Act violation and intentionally discriminated against Black voters. The panel said it could not allow Alabama to move forward with a plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination. The judges said keeping the court’s race-blind map would not disrupt Alabama’s elections because candidates had been running under that map until fifteen days earlier. Voters also remained districted under the court-approved map in state election computer systems. The court rejected Alabama’s attempt to finish what it called an intentional decision to dilute minority votes with a veneer of legislative regularity. Voter reassignment work had been set to begin Wednesday. That work will not proceed while the injunction remains in effect. The Associated Press added the appeal and national map-war context: Federal judges blocked Alabama’s plan to use a congressional map that could have given Republicans an advantage in a key U.S. House race. The three-judge panel said the Republican-backed plan intentionally discriminated based on race by including only one Black-majority district. Alabama must continue using a court-ordered map from 2024. That map includes two districts where Black residents compose a majority or close to it. The ruling is a setback for Republicans who want to reclaim the seat now held by Democrat Shomari Figures. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the state will immediately appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Marshall described the blocked plan as a blandly unobjectionable congressional map. Figures said the ruling was a significant step in the right direction. He also said there is still a long way to go before the fight is settled. The dispute lands inside a broader Republican redistricting push encouraged by President Trump as the GOP tries to protect its slim House majority. Democracy Docket summarized the legal reasoning around Callais and the 2023 plan: The court blocked Alabama from using its 2023 congressional map in the 2026 midterms. The ruling will almost certainly be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court described the map as tainted by intentional race-based discrimination. Alabama lawmakers moved to reinstate the 2023 map after the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision. That decision narrowed the legal path for vote-dilution claims under the Voting Rights Act. Black voters argued that Callais still did not allow Alabama to use a map already found intentionally discriminatory under the Fourteenth Amendment. The federal court agreed. The 2023 map contains one Black-majority congressional district. The court-approved map contains two districts where Black voters have a meaningful opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. Alabama held its May 19 primary, but four congressional races were postponed for an August 11 special election. That leaves election administrators, candidates, and voters waiting on a final answer while the fight heads back toward Washington. This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.