South Carolina Senate rejects Trump鈥檚 call to redraw congressional map for midterm elections

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) 鈥� President Donald Trump鈥檚 push to ahead of the November elections suffered a double setback Tuesday, as South Carolina senators declined to do so and a federal court blocked a Republican-backed map in Alabama.

As early in-person voting began Tuesday in South Carolina鈥檚 primaries, the state Senate rejected a Republican plan to cancel those congressional votes and instead schedule a new primary designed to help the GOP oust a longtime Democrat.

Some senators said it was simply too late to make a change.

鈥淪outh Carolina citizens are going to the polls today. And neither my conscience or common sense is going to let me stop an election that is already underway,鈥� Republican state Sen. Richard Cash said.

The political drama in South Carolina is part of a Republican strategy 鈥� propelled by Trump 鈥� to redraw voting districts to the GOP鈥檚 advantage in an attempt to hold on to a slim House majority in the midterm elections. Republicans have been moving quickly to try to leverage a recent that weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act.

In Alabama, a three-judge federal panel blocking the state from using that could help the GOP win an additional seat. The court said the plan 鈥渋ntentionally discriminated based on race鈥� by including only one Black-majority district, and it ordered the continued use of a court-imposed map that includes two districts with a significant proportion of Black residents.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, vowed a quick appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and predicted an eventual victory.

Republicans remain ahead in a national mid-decade battle. But Democrats, who have suffered their own share of setbacks, praised the turn of events in Alabama.

The 鈥渇ight for justice is far from over in states across the country where politicians are enacting gerrymanders on top of gerrymanders to erase equal representation for communities of color,鈥� said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, a nonprofit affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

A redistricting battle that has spanned 10 months

Voting districts typically are redrawn after a census at the start of a decade. But Trump has ahead of the November elections to try to rebuff political headwinds, which typically result in lost congressional seats for the president鈥檚 party in midterms.

Since Trump first urged Texas to redraw its voting districts last summer, Republicans also have enacted new House districts in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida . Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from those efforts, and perhaps 15 if they eventually win the ability to use a different map in Alabama.

Meanwhile, Democrats think they could win five additional seats from new voter-approved districts in California, plus one more from a new court-imposed map in Utah. Democrats suffered a setback earlier this month , where the state Supreme Court invalidated a voter-approved redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win additional seats.

Redistricting discussions are ongoing in Louisiana following an April high court ruling that struck down a majority-Black congressional district as an illegal partisan gerrymander. The Louisiana House could vote later this week on a new map that could eliminate a seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields and improve Republicans’ chances of winning six out of the state’s seven seats.

The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday across the U.S., including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts. That comes after the caucus last week called for Black athletes to in states that are gerrymandering congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers.

Clyburn decries White House role in redistricting

More than 32,000 votes had been cast in South Carolina by 1 p.m. Tuesday on the first day of early voting for the June 9 primary after Democrats called for people against a proposed new map to turn out in force. In 2022, about 125,000 early votes were cast in the entire two weeks.

Among the first to cast an early ballot in the small city of Orangeburg was , the Democrat whose district Republicans were trying to reshape in their quest for a clean sweep of South Carolina鈥檚 seven congressional seats. A defiant Clyburn insisted he would run for reelection, regardless of what the district looks like.

鈥淚鈥檓 OK if it鈥檚 Trump plus 20,鈥� Clyburn said while describing the potential Republican advantage in a reshaped district. 鈥淚 would be running where I live.鈥�

The Republican-led House a plan that would reconfigure Clyburn’s district, void the results of current congressional primaries and instead hold new U.S. House primaries in August.

Trump had lobbied for the plan, making at least two phone calls to Republican state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and also phoning in to a private meeting of Republican senators earlier this month. He also had maintained the pressure on social media.

But debate stalled in the Senate, where Democrats were staunchly opposed and some GOP lawmakers had concerns that an aggressive redistricting could backfire by making some Republican-held seats susceptible to losses because of the addition of Democratic voters.

Clyburn noted that when state lawmakers last redrew congressional districts, after the 2020 census, they spent months holding meetings across the state to gather public suggestions. Although that map resulted in a 6-1 seat advantage for Republicans over Democrats, the process was orderly and fair, he said.

鈥淲hen the map was challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court said, yes, this is constitutional,鈥� Clyburn said. But now, 鈥渢his White House says, to hell with the process, to hell with the Constitution, just do what we want done.鈥�

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Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri.