On Wednesday, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which dealt with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The 6–3 ruling, decided along ideological lines, limited Section 2 in such a way that may endanger plurality or majority-minority House districts that have historically boosted Democrats.

As many as eight Southern states, all governed by Republicans, could now redraw their congressional maps and, in the process, completely wipe out Democrats in the House delegations of five of them (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee) while lowering their seat count in three others (Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina).

Much of the debate about Callais has centered on the immediate political ramifications — namely, that this could make it harder for Democrats to win back the House in November. According to one analysis from the New York Times’ Nate Cohn, the ruling could double the threshold Democrats need to hit in the national House popular vote. But what has been less discussed is how these changes could accelerate the party’s demographic and ideological transformation.

Throughout the twentieth century, Democrats were widely considered the party of the working class, and their base heavily consisted of older, moderate, working-class black voters, with a large concentration in the South. This helped empower center-left politicians in both Congress and for the presidency. For example, the Congressional Black Caucus and Bill Clinton were driving forces behind a 1994 bill aimed at tackling violent crime, which allocated billions in funding for police and prisons and stiffened penalties for criminal offenses. As recently as 2016, black voters rallied behind Hillary Clinton, who was viewed as more moderate than Bernie Sanders.

However, things have been rapidly changing over the past couple of decades. According to a 2025 Times analysis, back in 2009, the median household income in Democratic House districts was lower ($67,259) than in Republican districts ($70,147). But since the start of the Trump era, this has flipped. As of the last Congress, the median income in Democratic districts had gone up to $80,779 while it had declined to $69,055 in Republican districts — a product of the kinds of places and voters each party is winning today.

The result of this shifting landscape has been that the Democratic base increasingly comprises affluent, college-educated, white suburban liberals, and the attitudes of the median Democratic base voter are now decidedly more Left-wing than they once were. This is especially true on social and cultural issues where these voters are sometimes now to the Left of even racial minorities, and it has led many in this new base to reject the more moderate politics of party forebears like Bill Clinton and even Barack Obama.

Importantly, the old base of the party has not totally vanished. In the 2020 presidential primary, it was only after working-class black voters in the South had their say that Democrats moved away from candidates like Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and rallied behind Joe Biden. But there is a real risk that Callais dilutes the power of this bloc moving forward.

Looking at the five states where Democrats could lose all of their remaining House seats, the median household income across those districts is just $54,977, far below the party (and national) median. Moreover, the congressional members representing these districts are all closer to the ideological center of the Democratic Party than its Left flank, according to data from VoteView. This notably includes Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, a longtime party leader who memorably helped boost Biden in 2020 and whose seat could now be on the chopping block.

It’s still possible that some of these states will opt not to draw the most maximally friendly gerrymander. After all, anytime maps get redrawn, members of the majority party can find themselves at risk of losing their home base or even being forced into a matchup against another member of their own party in a new district. But Democrats are very likely to lose at least some of these seats, which could further empower the liberal professional class both in their primary electorate and in Congress — and remove some of the last guardrails keeping the party tethered to the working class.

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Michael Baharaeen is chief political analyst at The Liberal Patriot substack.

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