For Black Voters, Midterms Hinge on Uneven Turnout, Redistricting
As Black voters remain the country’s most reliably Democratic bloc, their impact on the Nov. 3 midterms will depend less on party loyalty than on whether they turn out and whether their voting districts let them elect a candidate of their choice.
Legal protections for Black political representation have weakened considerably since the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision striking down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling effectively did away with “preclearance,” which required states and local jurisdictions with an “extensive history of racially discriminatory voting practices” to get federal approval for changes in voting laws or maps.
Without that protection, challenges to allegedly discriminatory maps have relied increasingly on Section 2 of the VRA, which prohibits voting practices that dilute minority voting power. During an Oct. 2 virtual news briefing, Evan Milligan, founder and former executive director of the grassroots civic engagement organization Alabama Forward, described the current legal framework as, “So you can’t pro-act, but you can react.”
Alabama as a representation testing ground
In 2023, the Supreme Court upheld Section 2 in Allen v. Milligan, ruling that Alabama’s congressional map violated Section 2 by packing Black voters — who constitute 27% of the state’s population — into one of seven districts. The court required that the state draw a second majority-Black district.
“Our state didn’t listen to these rules,” said Milligan, the case’s lead plaintiff. “They continued to thumb their nose at it, so we remained in court.”
Alabama’s Legislature responded with a new map with still only one majority-Black district, which a federal district court ruled also violated Section 2 by intentionally discriminating against Black voters.
Ultimately, a court-appointed special master drew a map that increased the Black voting-age population in the state’s 2nd District, helping lead to the November 2024 election of Democrat Rep. Shomari Figures, the first Black representative for the district in over 150 years.
But Black voters are now “in a more vulnerable and precarious position” than when this case began, said Milligan. On April 29, 2026 a 6-3 Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais raised the bar for Section 2 challenges by requiring plaintiffs to prove that a state legislature intentionally practiced racial discrimination in drawing districts.
Within days of the ruling, Republican-led states across the South — including Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida — were calling special redistricting sessions, or moving to suspend primaries.
Alabama returned to court, citing Callais, and a June 2 Supreme Court ruling — without full arguments and issued through what is known as the court’s “rocket docket” — let the state use its 2023 map for this year’s elections. That ruling effectively nullified the results of the May 19 congressional primaries, which had been conducted under the court-drawn map also used in 2024.
Voters returned to the polls in a special primary Aug. 11 under the state’s map, with statewide turnout of about 5%. The new borders cut the 2nd District’s Black share from about 47% to roughly 40%. Figures, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, now faces Trump-endorsed state Rep. Rhett Marques this November.
“What is happening here in Alabama, you should look at with the same level of clarity as you look at January 6, 2021, the way that is having ramifications that extend far beyond the people that were gathered in D.C. that day,” said Milligan. “The protection of the legal infrastructure around multiracial, open, transparent voting in this country is being dismantled before our eyes.”
Turnout remains decisive factor
Trump won 15% of Black voters, including 21% of Black men, in 2024 — nearly double from 8% of Black voters in 2020.
Dr. Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University who studies Black electoral behavior, cautioned against calling these recent Republican gains a realignment: “It’s going to take another 20 years before I know that that’s true.”
Black voters are still “the most consistent Democratic voting bloc in the United States,” she said.
In a 2024 Pew analysis, 84% of Black women and 81% of Black men identified with or leaned toward the Democratic Party.
Instead, the key question is turnout: Midterm voters tend to be older and whiter, with fewer low-propensity voters.
Black Americans constitute about 14% of the U.S. population but have recently made up only about 9% to 11% of midterm voters, suggesting “room for growth,” said Gillespie, adding that in recent polls regarding this year’s midterms, Black samples usually comprise only 120 to 200 respondents, which means “really, really, really big margins of error.”
The economy tops Black voters’ concerns, as it does for others’: A recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found that 52% of Black voters named an economic issue as their top concern, compared to 64% of voters overall.
Gillespie said economic barriers that already depress Black turnout — like income, education and job flexibility — “only get worse” in off-presidential-cycle years with lower spending and engagement, said Gillespie.
Mobilizing Black men
Michael Bland, executive director of Black Men Vote, said even high-profile campaigns often fail to communicate directly with Black men: “They don’t get mail, they don’t get text messages, they don’t get asked to join a focus group or be a part of the real studies that move the electorate.”
“For the last 20 to 25, maybe even 30 years, the message to the Black male constituency has been recidivism. It has been marijuana,” he continued; his organization’s research instead indicates widespread concerns by Black men regarding “workforce, entrepreneurship, education and mental health.”
Particularly for voters aged 18 to 45, “the winning strategy is economy,” Bland explained, in language grounded in personal results: “‘How can you help put money in my pocket? I did everything you asked me to do, and I’m still getting screwed on the back end.’”
“The attraction of Donald Trump was not him with the … flowy wig or toupee coming down a golden escalator,” said Bland. “We remember the ‘Art of the Deal.’ We remember ‘The Apprentice.’ ‘I failed and made it back. I failed and made it back.’ That story resonates with Black America.”
“Black men, because they are the last persuadable base in this country, will have the ability to move anywhere between seven to 14 statewide elections,” he added. “Nobody’s talking about it.”
Ahead of National Black Man Voter Day on Oct. 24, Black Men Vote is partnering with 100 Black Men of America, the National Urban League, the NAACP and other groups to mobilize 100,000 Black men before the midterms through phone banking on electoral issues; a #ThisBlackManVotes digital storytelling campaign; outreach across YouTube and gaming platforms; and organizing in barbershops, churches, union halls and college campuses.
“We’re constantly trying to provide spaces where Black men can talk, and they’re not being talked at. They’re actually being listened to,” said Bland. He added that participants in his organization’s focus groups “mentioned certain athletes specifically and said, ‘Stop putting them in front of our face, thinking that they are going to get us to vote. The people who are going to get us to vote are our city councilmen, the AAU coaches, the AYF coaches, the folks that really have skin in the game in the community.’”
Bland, who has trained nearly 200 candidates for office nationwide, said he gives each the same advice: “You got to figure out how to get Tyrone off the couch. I’ve been saying that for 20 years, and Tyrone is that sporadic voter who is looking for somebody to speak to his language.”
SELEN OZTURK
ACoM editor and research director Selen Ozturk was born in Istanbul and raised in the Bay Area. She holds a philosophy degree from UC Berkeley. Her work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGATE, Bay City News, PopMatters, and Senses of Cinema, among many other outlets.
