Black voters help Democrats flip or hold seats in Alabama, Texas and Florida

Alabama turnout rose 65% on average, Guardian-reviewed data show

Alabama’s voter turnout increased on average by 65% in the 2026 midterms, from 28% in 2022 to 44% in 2026, according to data reviewed by The Guardian. Black-majority turnout in Shomari Figures’s district increased by 81%; the three counties with the highest turnout in the district were all Black-majority. More Black voters in Louisiana cast early ballots than in any other midterm or gubernatorial election in the past decade.

A photograph by Octavio Jones/AP showed voters entering a public library in Tampa, Florida, to cast ballots on the final day of early voting on 1 November.

Black voter turnout surged across Southern states where Republicans were accused of redrawing electoral maps to diminish Black political power, The Guardian reported, and Democrats flipped or held seats in Alabama, Texas and Florida with support from Black voters. The 2026 midterms provided the first opportunity to assess the redistricting effort’s effect on voters, and organizers said the drive failed to stop Black voters’ momentum.

The Guardian said the Supreme Court’s April decision in Louisiana v Callais rendered ineffective what it described as the 1965 Voting Rights Act’s last remaining provision against racial discrimination in voting. Even before Callais, Republican lawmakers in Texas, following directives from Trump, had redrawn maps in an attempt to consolidate their party’s political power. After the ruling, Alabama, Tennessee and Louisiana redrew majority-Black districts.

Voters and voting rights groups across the South opposed the decision and the map redraws, The Guardian reported, and protests followed across the region. The All Roads Lead to the South protest in Alabama drew thousands of people from across the country. Tuesday’s midterms offered the first opportunity to assess the redistricting effort’s effect on voters.

In 2024, Black voters in Alabama celebrated when Shomari Figures, who is Black, was elected as the first congressman from the state’s then-newly drawn, majority-Black second congressional district, which includes most of Montgomery. After the Callais ruling, Alabama reinstated an old map that reverted Figures’s district to boundaries a court previously found had diminished the influence of Black voters in Alabama’s Black Belt. Figures, a Democrat, then faced a tougher contest after the district was redrawn to favor Republicans, but he won by nearly eight points on Tuesday.

When Figures first won, Jamey Thompson, elected to a local school board that year, said at the time that the district “for years didn’t have the representation that they needed to push certain things, like more for the schools, better housing, things like that.”

“There is a direct correlation between the Callais decision, the behavior of these state assemblies, and Black voters turning out during the primary, and then the results that we saw on Tuesday,” said Ashley England-Albright, co-founder and legal director of Black Voters Matter.

The redistricting drive “blew up” in Republican lawmakers’ faces, said Ashley K Shelton, CEO and president of the Power Coalition for Equality and Justice in Louisiana. “There’s nowhere to go but up from there,” she said. “We still have to fight to protect representation. We have to continue to fight for that representation.” She added: “Let’s be clear: voters overcame unbelievable voter suppression across this country, and in particular in the south, to make sure that they were able to cast their vote in their voice.”

A July study of voter turnout in the South during the primaries indicated that Callais was already spurring increased participation from Black voters. Alabama’s Greene county surpassed 50% turnout in the primary election, while Bullock, Lowndes, Macon and Montgomery counties — all in the second congressional district — also recorded significant turnout. Bullock county, which was more than 70% Black, had the third-largest turnout in the state.

In Louisiana, the state that triggered Callais, Black voters made up 35.7% of the primary electorate despite accounting for 32.1% of the population, according to The Guardian. Louisiana maintained increased Black voter turnout through the midterms, when more Black voters cast early ballots than in any other midterm or gubernatorial election in the past decade.

“The turnout and the exit polling that we’re hearing from partners and the boots on the ground that we had was that folks were not going to allow the court decision to undermine the power and the authority that they had with their votes,” said Sarah Whittington, advocacy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana.

Nadine Smith, president and CEO of Color of Change, which worked to mobilize voters across the South before the election, said: “So much of what this administration has done has been to roll back the protections that give us access to the ballot, while simultaneously flooding us with propaganda that tells us that it doesn’t matter.” She said: “What you saw was Black voters showing up in the face of an administration that has spent two years attacking our rights, weakening voter protections and redrawing maps specifically to diminish Black political power.” Smith added: “Even in early voting, we were seeing a surge. We organized anyway, and we voted anyway.” She continued: “Even in places where they, not all, but many of the places where they redrew maps, they could not stop the momentum.”

The Democratic wins built on a decades-long movement to protect and build Black political power in the region. Organizers in the South have worked for decades to mobilize voters, and the April Callais ruling reminded them how hard previous generations had fought to secure the Voting Rights Act. Five months before the Voting Rights Act was signed in 1965, about 600 people marching in support of voting rights on Alabama’s Edmund Pettus Bridge were attacked by law enforcement officers, who confronted them with tear gas, billy clubs and other weapons. The march, remembered as “Bloody Sunday,” became a turning point in the civil rights movement, and voting rights advocates invoked that history during the campaign to remind voters what was at stake.

“This is the lesson of the south,” Smith said. “There’s power in community, in connecting with each other. We saw HBCU students marching to the polls. We saw so much of that sense of: ‘I vote not simply about the candidates in front of me. I vote as an expression of my love for my community, for my people, for my family. I’ll do everything in my power, and my power is considerable to make the path more humane.’”