BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana’s congressional primaries won’t be going forward as scheduled in May, as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a majority-Black congressional district, the state’s top elected officials said Thursday.
Gov. Jeff Landry and Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill, both Republicans, said in a joint statement that Wednesday’s high court ruling effectively prohibits the state from carrying out the primaries under the current districts. Early voting had been scheduled to begin Saturday in advance of the May 16 primary.
“The State is currently enjoined from carrying out congressional elections under the current map,” Landry and Murrill said in the statement posted to social media. “We are working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to develop a path forward.”
That path is likely to lead to a new U.S. House map benefiting Republican candidates in Louisiana.
President Trump, in a series of social media posts Thursday, praised Landry for moving quickly to revise the state’s congressional districts and urged Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to do likewise in light of the Supreme Court’s decision.
While civil rights activists denounced the potential for diminished minority representation in Congress, top Republicans cited the Supreme Court’s decision as justification to spur an already intense national redistricting battle among states before the November elections.
“I think all states who have unconstitutional maps should look at that very carefully, and I think they should do it before the midterm,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters in Washington.
Questions persist about election postponement
Louisiana’s election suspension was denounced by some Democrats and questioned by some legal experts.
“This is going to cause mass confusion among voters — Democrats, Republicans, white, Black, everybody,” said Louisiana state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat who represents the New Orleans area. “What they’re effectively doing is changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game. It’s rigging the system.”
Although Louisiana officials may legally be able to move the primary, it’s not accurate to assert that it was blocked by the Supreme Court’s decision, said Ruth Greenwood, director of the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School.
State Rep. Kyle Green, a former assistant state attorney general who is chair of the House Democratic caucus, also cast doubt on the legal justification for postponing the congressional primary.
“The Court’s decision does not halt the election process on its own,” Green said. “And any attempt to suspend or disrupt an ongoing election at this stage would raise serious constitutional concerns.”
Delaying an election is unusual but not unprecedented.
During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, several states pushed back elections because of health concerns. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who led Louisiana at the time, postponed Louisiana’s April 4 presidential primary three weeks before it was supposed to occur — then delayed it again until July 11.
Louisiana could join a national redistricting wave
Louisiana currently is represented in the U.S. House by four Republicans and two Democrats. A revised map could give Republicans a chance to pick up at least one more seat in the November midterms — adding to Republican gains elsewhere from redistricting.
Voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade, after each census. But Trump last year urged Texas Republicans to redraw House districts to give the GOP an edge in the midterms. California Democrats reciprocated, and redistricting efforts soon cascaded across states.
On Wednesday, Florida became the latest state to redraw its U.S. House districts, adopting a new map backed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that could give the GOP a chance at winning several additional seats.
The Florida vote occurred just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority issued a ruling that significantly weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act. The court said Louisiana officials had relied too heavily on race when drawing a congressional district that is represented by Democrat Cleo Fields.
Trump wants Tennessee to also take up redistricting in response to the court’s ruling. The president posted on social media that he had spoken with Lee, who he said would work hard for a new map that could help Republicans gain an additional seat. Democrats currently hold only one of the state’s nine House seats — a district centered in Memphis, which is majority-Black.
Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, said he is in conversations with the White House and others while reviewing the court’s decision.
Louisiana has a history of redistricting challenges
After the 2020 census, Louisiana officials had drawn House voting district boundaries that maintained one Black-majority district and five mostly white districts, in a state with a population that is about one-third Black.
A federal judge later struck down the map for violating the Voting Rights Act. And the following year the Supreme Court found that Alabama had to create its own second majority-Black congressional district.
In response, Louisiana’s Legislature and governor adopted a new House map in 2024 that created a second Black-majority district. But that map also was subsequently challenged in court, leading to the most recent Supreme Court ruling.
After the ruling, Landry called U.S. House candidates on Wednesday and told them that primaries would probably be stalled, according to Misti Cordell, a Republican running in a crowded race to fill U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow’s vacated seat.
“It’s an inconvenience for a candidate for sure, but you know they want to do it right versus having to go through all this again,” Cordell said. She added that she appreciated the heads-up before she and other candidates began “spending their war chest” during the final weeks leading up to election day.
Republican state lawmakers are reviewing which pending bills could be used to alter primaries and reconfigure congressional maps, said Louisiana state Rep. Beau Beaullieu, chair of the House committee overseeing redistricting efforts.
Cline, Brook and Lieb write for the Associated Press. Brook reported from New Orleans and Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Mo. AP reporter Travis Loller contributed to this report from Nashville.
