Republicans score twin redistricting victories: From the Politics Desk

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In today’s edition, we break down two big redistricting developments that are poised to give Republicans a boost. Plus, Andrea Mitchell examines how King Charles could help smooth over tensions between President Donald Trump and the British prime minister.

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— Adam Wollner

Republicans score twin redistricting victories at the Supreme Court and in Florida

As we wrote at the beginning of the week, the mid-decade redistricting battle is still raging, even as primaries in many states have either already occurred or are fast-approaching.

That battle entered yet another new phase today, with the Supreme Court issuing a ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act. It’s a win for Republicans that all but ensures the map-drawing fight will stretch beyond this fall’s midterm elections.

VRA ruling: In a 6-3 decision, the court said that a congressional map in Louisiana was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, Lawrence Hurley writes. The justices, with the conservatives in the majority, told states they can almost never consider race when drawing maps to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which was enacted to protect minority voters who long faced discrimination in elections.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, said that while there may be extreme situations where the use of race can be justified to draw a map, no such conditions existed in the Louisiana case.

The ruling means Louisiana will need to redraw its map, though its primary takes place in just over two weeks on May 16. Other GOP-controlled southern states that may have an opening to draw new maps will face similar time constraints, as filing deadlines have passed in some of them and early voting is under way in others.

Longer term, the ruling could lead to fewer minority-majority districts not just in Congress but also in state and local government, reducing the number of non-white elected officials.

Florida: Meanwhile, the GOP-led Florida Legislature passed a new congressional map that creates four additional Republican-leaning seats, Matt Dixon reports from Tallahassee. The proposal passed the Florida state House and Senate on largely partisan lines, even as some Republicans have expressed skepticism about it.

Much of the focus from opponents focused on how Gov. Ron DeSantis is using the plan as a vehicle to do away with anti-gerrymandering language in the state constitution. DeSantis and Republicans have essentially acknowledged the map is out of line with the current state constitution, but they believe state and U.S. Supreme Court rulings, such as the one today, will help ease its path.

Florida is the eighth state since 2025 to enact new a new congressional map following a back-and-forth kickstarted last summer in Texas by President Donald Trump. Based on those new district lines, Republicans could be in position to pick up as may as 13 seats, while Democrats could gain up to 10.

➡️ For subscribers: What the Supreme Court’s ruling on race and redistricting means for 2026 elections — and beyond, by Jane C. Timm, Adam Edelman and Ben Kamisar

For subscribers: Tax me, wealthy Democrats say, as they try to prove they're 'class traitors'

By Sahil Kapur

From lawmakers on Capitol Hill like Reps. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., and Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., to candidates for governor like California’s Tom Steyer, a swath of ambitious, high-net-worth Democrats are telling voters that the rich should pay more in taxes and that they are personally glad to help reduce income inequality and fund a safety net.

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King Charles to the rescue?

Analysis by Andrea Mitchell

This week, King Charles accomplished what no recent American president has been able to achieve.

Speaking to a joint meeting of Congress, he received repeated standing ovations from both sides of the aisle, including from a Republican-led House that wouldn’t even agree to a compromise to fund the Department of Homeland Security that passed the Republican-led Senate.

House Speaker Mike Johnson even joined the ovation when the king cited the Magna Carta, the foundation for British law, as the basis for the shared principle between our countries that executive power is subject to checks and balances. That’s notable in a Congress that’s often willing to cede its own authority to President Donald Trump’s executive orders.

The British monarch was also cheered in his speech for his ringing endorsement of NATO, reminding lawmakers that it had gone to war only once, to fight for the U.S. in Afghanistan after 9/11. That contradicted Trump’s continued complaints that NATO would never come to the defense of the U.S.

And Charles said, to the delight of Ukrainian diplomats: “That same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people. It is needed in order to secure a truly just and lasting peace.”

Accompanied by Queen Camilla, the king also visited the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero in New York today. Escorted by the memorial’s chairman, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the royal couple met with first responders and relatives of victims. Sixty-seven British nationals died on 9/11, more than from any country other than the U.S.

In his speech to Congress, Charles didn’t explicitly talk about Trump’s scorching criticism of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for his refusal to join the U.S. in the war against Iran, and for initially denying U.S. bombers the right to fly from British bases. But Charles pointedly said, “It is my hope, my prayer, that in these turbulent times, working together and with our international partners, we can stem the beating of ploughshares into swords.”

In that appeal, he echoed similar sentiments against the use of force expressed by his mother, Queen Elizabeth, when she addressed a joint meeting of Congress in 1991 in the immediate aftermath of British soldiers, alongside the U.S., defeating Saddam Hussein in Desert Storm.

British officials told NBC News they were hoping this week’s state visit would help repair the relationship between Trump and Starmer. Asked this afternoon if the king’s visit had smoothed over their disagreement over Iran, Trump said, “Yeah, it helps it from the standpoint that you know, when you like the king of a country so much, it probably helps your relationship with the prime minister.” Though he went on to say, “But you know that case, the prime minister, I said, ‘Do you want to send a little help?’ He said, ‘No, we’ll send it after you win the war.’ I said, ‘That’s not good. That’s not good.’”

Apparently, a royal visit, with all the pomp and circumstance of an F-35 flyover and a parade of troops at the arrival ceremony, capped by a white-tie state dinner, can only accomplish so much.

Follow live updates from the king’s visit to the U.S. →

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.

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