Tennessee state legislators on Thursday passed a congressional map that dismantles the state’s lone majority-Black district and gives Republicans the advantage in all nine of the state’s House seats.  

The move comes a little over a week after the Supreme Court limited the use of race in drawing congressional districts, prompting several GOP-controlled Southern states to weigh redrawing their House maps ahead of the midterm elections. 

Both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly, where Republicans hold supermajorities, approved the new map Thursday in the face of loud protests at the state Capitol in Nashville. Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who called the special session to address redistricting, signed the bill into law, according to news reports.

The new map targets the Memphis-anchored 9th District, held by Democrat Steve Cohen since 2007. Shelby County, which is home to Memphis, would be split between three districts, and the new 9th would stretch from Memphis to the Nashville area while hugging the Mississippi border. 

The current version of the 9th District has been a Democratic stronghold and backed Kamala Harris for president by 43 points in 2024, according to calculations by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. But under the new lines, the district would shift to one that would have backed Trump by 21 points. 

“It’s a blatant, corrupt power grab that would destroy the Black community’s and our entire city’s voice,” Cohen said on social media Wednesday. He also told Semafor before the map passed that he intended to run for reelection. 

Cohen was already facing a primary challenge from state Rep. Justin Pearson, who spoke on the state House floor Thursday. 

“What you are doing today is eviscerating the only Black-majority congressional district in our state because we are majority Black,” he said. 

Republicans have countered that the new map represented political calculations and not race. 

The new GOP-drawn map also shores up the state’s 5th District, where embattled Republican Rep. Andy Ogles was facing a well-funded challenge from Democrat Chaz Molder, the mayor of Columbia. Ogles’ district sheds its Nashville territory and now stretches all the way to Memphis, transforming into a seat that Trump would have carried by 23 points. 

Each of Tennessee’s nine districts would have voted for Trump by at least 20 points under the new lines, according to Inside Elections’ analysis. 

This cycle’s redistricting fights have been turbocharged since last week when the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s congressional map as an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander” in a ruling that significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act.

Louisiana has since postponed its May 16 primaries for House races as GOP state legislators there look to draw new lines. Republicans in Alabama and South Carolina are also eyeing changes to their congressional maps for November’s elections. 

Mary Ellen McIntire contributed to this report.