President Trump said on Thursday that Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee would work to correct the “unconstitutional flaw” in the state’s congressional map after the Supreme Court ruled to strike down a provision of the Voting Rights Act requiring majority-minority House districts.

“Likewise, all of the other Political Representatives of Tennessee have promised to do so. This should give us one extra seat, and help Save our Country from the Radical Left Democrats, and their Country destroying Policies of High Tax, Open Borders, Transgender Mutilization, Defunding the Police, ICE, and Border Patrol, No Voter ID, Soft on Crime, and so much more,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The Volunteer State has one Democrat-held seat in the U.S. House.

The Hill has more:

It comes a day after Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) called on the state legislature to reconvene to redistrict for another GOP House seat in Memphis.

“it’s essential to cement @realDonaldTrump’s agenda and the Golden Age of America,” she wrote on the social media platform X.

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Blackburn, who is running for governor, vowed to “keep Tennessee a red state, and as Governor, I’ll do everything I can to make this map a reality.”

Republicans currently hold eight out of nine House seats.

The call for the GOP to secure more seats comes as Republicans hold a slim majority in the House and are looking to keep it in the November midterms.

“Fantastic news,” Blackburn said in response to Trump’s post.

Axios shared further:

Democrats would be sure to vehemently oppose a frantic redistricting effort.

The odds of creating a 9-0 Republican map this year are steep at best.

The qualifying deadline for the August primary has already passed and the field is set for this year’s election ballots.

Any maneuver to change the boundaries in the span of a few months would surely trigger a lawsuit.

Even if it can’t be done this year, Blackburn says she’s committed to a new map if she is elected governor.

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“Today’s ruling makes it harder to challenge unfair maps and practices designed to dilute the voices of communities like ours,” state Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat, said in a statement. “It hands Republicans across the South the legal cover to redraw districts in ways that will cost Black and Latino Americans seats in Congress, seats in state legislatures and seats at every table where decisions about their lives are made.”

The state legislature previously sliced up the Nashville-area in 2022, redrawing the reliably blue District 5 and eliminating a Democratic U.S. House seat in Middle Tennessee.

 

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