One of three House Republicans, including a top lieutenant of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, suddenly faces becoming much more vulnerable in next year’s election after the Supreme Court cleared the way for drawing a new Louisiana district map that boosts Black voters’ power.
The direct impact of Monday’s order — which lifted a hold the justices had placed on an earlier lower court ruling, effectively allowing the 2022 midterms to happen with challenged maps — remains to be seen.
But handicappers said one incumbent in danger of finding his now-safe Republican district redrawn to give Black voters a majority, or greater power to influence the result, is 6th District Rep. Garret Graves, a five-term incumbent who served as McCarthy’s point man on recent negotiations with President Joe Biden’s administration over raising the debt ceiling. Voters in the 6th District favored President Donald Trump over Biden by 30 percentage points in 2020.
