Tennessee’s Republican supermajority enacted a new congressional map on May 7, 2026, that splits Memphis—the state’s only majority-Black city—into three districts and eliminates the state’s sole Democratic congressional seat. The map creates a 9-0 all-Republican delegation, the first in Tennessee’s history.

State troopers cleared the gallery of the Tennessee House that same day after protesters chanted “No Jim Crow 2.0.” KeShaun Pearson, brother of state Representative Justin Pearson, refused to leave and was arrested. In the Senate chamber, Democratic state senator Charlane Oliver climbed onto her desk with a banner reading “No Jim Crow 2.0, Stop the TN Steal.” before being removed.

Republican State Representative Jason Zachary acknowledged the map’s partisan intent, saying, “It was absolutely drafted on politics.” He added, “This gives us a unique opportunity, for the first time in history, to have an all-Republican delegation sent from Tennessee to Washington, D.C.”

The redistricting follows the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which narrowed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and expanded state legislative discretion in jurisdictions with substantial Black voting populations. Tennessee enacted its new map eight days after that ruling.

The move contributes to a projected national spike in the Gerrymandering Partisan Index (GPI), a metric that tracks how far congressional seats deviate from the votes that produced them. The GPI is calculated across the 37 states with three or more congressional districts by measuring seats won by the majority party beyond what proportional rounding would award, expressed as a share of the maximum possible on a 0-to-100 scale. The 2026 election cycle is projected to produce a GPI of 45, a 30% increase from 2024. Analysts attribute the jump entirely to new district maps rather than shifts in voter behavior.

Historical GPI data show the index ranged from 5 in 1986 to 34 in 2024, with a low and stable average of 13 between 1976 and 2008. The 2012 GPI rose to 28 and never returned to pre-2010 levels.