Let's Do This: State Supreme Courts Keep Backing Up Republicans on Gerrymandering
Here is how we can start to change that
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It happened again, this time in Missouri.
On Tuesday, May 12, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that a new, Republican-drawn congressional district map erasing a Democratic seat in Kansas City did not violate the state constitution. Additionally, as The Downballot detailed yesterday, the court offered the Republican Secretary of State of Missouri a legal path to slow-walk the certification of a veto referendum overturning this map so that the statewide vote to repeal it would be held on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Combined, these two rulings will likely net another seat in Congress for Republicans in 2026 via mid-decade gerrymandering, although there remains a very real chance that the map will be overturned in advance of the 2028 elections.
This is starting to seem like a pattern, isn’t it? State supreme courts, dominated by Republicans, uphold Republican gerrymanders that erase Democratic seats, while doing exactly the opposite when Democrats try to respond in kind.
This makes you wonder how Republicans won control of these state supreme courts in the first place, doesn’t it? Well, while every state has different systems for state supreme court seats, in some cases Republicans won control of state supreme courts in low turnout, off-year elections held on unusual days. These are exactly the sort of elections which Republicans dominated for decades.
However, now we have a chance to turn the tables, flip the script and put the shoe on the other foot. Since Trump’s rise to power nearly a decade ago, Democrats have increasingly dominated among high-propensity voters who cast a ballot in every election, while Republicans have increasingly relied on low-propensity voters who rarely cast ballots outside of presidential elections, if they cast them at all. Whatever you may think of this change, it provides Democrats with a real chance to start reversing Republican dominance of state supreme courts that are determined via low turnout elections, like just we have recently been able to do in Wisconsin.
The next steps in this process are two important elections for the Georgia Supreme Court, both of which are being held on May 19, only five days from today. In these two elections, a conservative justice appointed by a former Republican governor is being challenged by a liberal attorney associated with Team Blue (aka, Democrats and progressives). The liberal attorneys are Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin. You can click on their names to view their campaign websites and learn more about them.
Georgia is a crucial swing state, both for presidential and Senate elections. Abortion is mostly outlawed in Georgia after six weeks, and Republicans in the state are looking to draw new, pro-GOP congressional maps in advance of the 2028 elections. Republicans also hold an absurd 8-1 advantage on the Georgia Supreme Court, so expect the highest court in the Peach State to rubber stamp basically anything the Republican governor and state legislature approve.
We can begin to reverse this situation with two victories on May 19. While that will only reduce the conservative majority on the court to 6-3, there are three more Georgia Supreme Court elections two years from now, providing Democrats with a chance to really close the gap or even win an outright majority before the 2028 presidential election takes place.
This isn’t just a pipe dream, either, because these Georgia Supreme Court elections are now taking place on favorable dates for Democrats. In November 2025, Democrats were able to swamp Republicans with two statewide 25-point landslide victories in Georgia in part because of the newfound Democratic advantage in low-turnout contests.
To make it easy for you to help put an end to Republican dominance of state supreme courts in crucial swing states like Georgia, I put together an ActBlue page where you can split a donation between the two liberal attorneys running for Georgia Supreme Court, Miracle Rankin and Jen Jordan, in the May 19 statewide elections. You can also donate to to Bowers Kerbel Media on this page. Please consider splitting a $10 donation three ways.
In the interest of transparency, Bowers Kerbel Media is the two-person, pro-democracy and pro-Democratic media and activist organization that operates Wolves and Sheep and the Bowers News Media news and email list. The amounts you give to each candidate, or to Bowers Kerbel Media, can be adjusted by clicking “customize amounts.” No donation to Bowers Kerbel Media is required in order to donate to either Miracle Rankin or Jen Jordan. You can read more about, and directly support, Miracle Rankin and Jen Jordan on their campaign websites.
Good.