The nationwide redistricting arms race is growing increasingly unpredictable. Courts are knocking down maps. Republicans are breaking with President Trump. Democrats are finding new states where they will try to pick up seats.
But there is one constant that will soon define the final contours of the redistricting battle: the calendar.
States have clear filing deadlines for candidates to get on the ballot for primary elections. Legislatures have the ability to change both these deadlines and the dates of the primaries — many did in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. If state legislators decided to take the highly partisan route of a mid-decade gerrymander instead of waiting for the regular assessment that happens every 10 years, they would probably be more than willing to also pass a law moving the dates and deadlines before a planned redistricting session.
But once these deadlines have passed, they are very difficult to undo; there is little known modern precedent for a legislature to throw out already cast votes in a primary election because an opportunity to draw a more partisan map has arisen. And creating a new filing deadline for candidates could cause significant confusion, invite litigation and overburden already overworked and underfunded election officials.
“It would be very difficult if the voters have already voted to throw out the results, and that gets into really murky territory,” said Kareem Crayton, a vice president at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank focused on democracy and voting rights issues.
So some states that are hoping to draw new maps, or that are locked in a legal tussle over their congressional lines, are running out of time.
Texas, for example, has a primary election in March, and its filing deadline to get on the ballot is Dec. 8, just a few weeks away. The state’s Republican-led Legislature passed a map in August creating five Republican seats, but a federal court struck down the map this month. And then the Supreme Court stepped in, temporarily restoring the gerrymandered maps from this summer. But the court indicated that it would still consider the issue in a future ruling, creating a cloud of uncertainty over the state’s congressional lines.
This can be a headache for candidates, who need set lines to know where to run, and election officials, who need time to certify ballots and get them before voters.
Some states have already seen deadlines pass without new maps, leaving their legislatures with much more difficult tasks.
In Illinois, where the state government is under complete Democratic control and has faced pressure from party leaders to redistrict, the candidate filing deadline passed on Nov. 3, 2025. The state board of elections is set to certify the primary ballot on Jan. 7. After that, the legislature would not be able to decertify the ballot.
The path ahead if Democrats in Illinois choose to redistrict after the January ballot certification is complex and legally questionable. The legislature would most likely have to vote to move the primary date, establish a new filing deadline and certification date, and pass new maps. The resulting ballot would have to include the candidates from both filing periods, according to the state board of elections.
This situation would be confusing — and it could prompt litigation challenging the legality of the process as well as the maps.
The pressure of the primary calendar may be most acute when it comes to the biggest unknown in the redistricting wars — the fate of the Voting Rights Act. Oral arguments before the Supreme Court in October indicated that the justices were poised to weaken a key provision of the civil rights law by sharply limiting the ability of lawmakers to use race as a factor in drawing voting maps.
This could lead to widespread redistricting efforts across the South, where that provision has defined maps for decades. An analysis by The New York Times found that Republicans could gain as many as a dozen seats if the court struck down that provision of the Voting Rights Act.
Since the case is technically a rehearing from the previous term, the court could rule as soon as this winter, though that would be unusual.
The court’s term lasts until early summer, but if it waits until late June to release a ruling, many states would be unable to draw maps before the 2026 election — and primary elections would have already been held.
Even if a ruling comes soon, getting on the ballot isn’t always as simple as a candidate submitting a form and payment. Some states require signatures or petitions from districts before candidates can appear on the ballot. This only adds to the time crunch.
Some states have tried to prepare for the unpredictability of the Supreme Court’s timing. Louisiana, whose maps are at the center of the case before the Supreme Court, passed a law in October shifting the state’s primary from mid-April to mid-May, giving the state more time should the court rule in the spring.
Nick Corasaniti is a Times reporter covering national politics, with a focus on voting and elections.
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