”Republicans’ main argument for electing Herschel Walker just went up in smoke,” said Sarafina Chitika, a Warnock campaign spokeswoman. And that could give voters worried about Walker’s personal issues less of a reason to vote in a post-Thanksgiving overtime race. While a plaintiff’s victory is unlikely to flip control in either chamber, additional Black-majority districts in the Senate and House could elect Democrats who would narrow Republican margins.But now that Democrats control the Senate, Walker can’t cast the race as a battle to flip back control of the chamber. The GOP currently holds a 102-78 majority in the state House and a 33-23 majority in the state Senate. However, lawmakers also could try to convert McBath’s current seat into a majority Black seat. If the plaintiffs win, the balance could revert to 8-6 Republicans. House delegation in 2020, but majority-GOP state lawmakers redrew lines to eliminate one of those Democratic seats, boosting their majority to 9-5. Republicans held an 8-6 majority in Georgia’s U.S. “What does it mean to have a significant portion of your state that has not been able to access power?” “It sounds like, so far, the state is saying, ‘We don’t talk about race at all.’ But then, is there a story to be told about?” Crayton said. “That’s a defense you can offer is what the plaintiffs want would require putting considerations of race above everything else,” Bullock said.īut Kareem Crayton, senior director for voting and representation at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, said Georgia’s claims that lawmakers didn’t consider race in drawing lines, only partisanship, should lead to questions about whether they considered if the lines discriminated. The state also argues plaintiffs would rely so much on race to draw districts that it would be illegal.
Lawmakers then redrew lines to make the district significantly more Republican, leading McBath to jump to and win reelection in a different district. McBath, who is Black, first won office in a district with a small Black population. The state, though, argues the plaintiffs haven’t proved voters act the way they do because of race, arguing partisanship is a stronger motivator.ĭefense attorneys, for example, point to the role of partisanship in the original election of Democratic U.S. “Despite these striking demographic changes, the enacted congressional plan fails to reflect the growth in Georgia’s Black population,” the plaintiffs challenging Georgia’s congressional map wrote in a summary of their case filed with the court. They point to Georgia’s addition of a half million Black residents from 2010 to 2020, nearly half of all population growth. The plaintiffs challenging the districts argue there is room to draw another Black-majority congressional seat on the west side of metro Atlanta, as well as three more majority-Black state Senate districts and five additional majority-Black state house districts in various parts of the state. “He found the plaintiffs had proven the elements of a Section 2 violation at that point,” Bullock said of the earlier ruling. He allowed the new congressional and state legislative maps to be used for 2022’s elections, finding changes close to elections would have been too disruptive.Ĭharles Bullock, a University of Georgia political scientist who studies redistricting, said he expects Jones to side with the plaintiffs. Jones already ruled in March 2022 that some parts of Georgia’s redistricting plans probably violate federal law.
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