SEN TOMMY TUBERVILLE, MORGAN MURPHY: Republicans must win the map war once and for all

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 09:00:46 -0400

Republicans didn’t start this decade’s redistricting fight. But we should finish it.

States traditionally redraw districts only after the decennial census. In 2022 and again in 2024, Democrats fired the first salvos by gerrymandering New York, eventually flipping four Republican seats in the Empire State.

Texas countered in 2025, redistricting a gain of two to five seats for the GOP. A great howl went up from Democrats — and much of the nation’s left-leaning media — claiming President Trump and Republicans initiated a redistricting war and challenging its legality. Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Texas’s move constitutional, with Justice Alito noting the motivation was "pure and simple" partisan advantage.

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After all, despite sizable Republican minorities, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii and Delaware all send zero Republicans to Congress.

Democrats seem to only hate gerrymandering when Republicans do it.

Last year, Indiana’s Republican majority declined to redistrict — a move that could have yielded two additional Republican House seats. Perhaps they believed they were setting a noble bipartisan example.

Virginia blew that theory out of the Tidewater.

The Old Dominion currently sends six Democrats and five Republicans to the House. New lines have squiggled five districts into the Washington, D.C., area, threatening to eliminate four of the five Republican seats.

"Democrats did not step back. We fought back," crowed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. If Republicans stick to a cautious playbook, Virginia’s gambit will likely hand Democrats the House in November.

Think on that. A Democrat-controlled House means more impeachments, more sham investigations, more government shutdowns and two years of gridlock to close out President Trump’s presidency.

Strong Republicans aren’t rolling after the loss in Virginia.

Florida is expected to redraw its map, flipping between two and five seats this cycle.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled race-based gerrymandering unconstitutional in Louisiana v. Callais as many as 15 seats could swing to the GOP — if Republican-led states actually act.

Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee could all maximize their Republican representation. Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina and Texas could each go deeper red.

Our own state of Alabama — which voted for President Trump by 65% in 2024 — by all rights should send an entirely Republican delegation to Washington.

Now that the court has ruled, Alabama’s attorney general and secretary of state must file a motion to vacate the federal district court injunction that locked in the current map through 2030. The argument is straightforward: the injunction was issued under a legal framework that no longer exists, making its continued enforcement inequitable.

A swift lifting of that injunction would allow the governor to call a special session for reapportionment. Both chambers must pass a new map — a process Alabama completed in a single week in 2021 — before the governor signs it into law. Because the regular primary filing deadline has passed, the legislature should simultaneously authorize a congressional special election with reopened candidate qualifying. New nominees must be certified by the secretary of state no later than August 24 to appear on the November general election ballot.

In a country where only 20 House seats are truly competitive, two more Republicans from Alabama could mean the difference between gridlock and advancing President Trump’s agenda.

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If Republicans don’t act now while we hold the White House, the Senate, the House and a conservative Supreme Court majority, we risk being voted back into the minority for a decade or more.

We owe it to the nation to lead

Morgan Murphy is a candidate for Alabama’s 7th Congressional District.

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SEN TOMMY TUBERVILLE, MORGAN MURPHY: Republicans must win the map war once and for all