Wisconsin Supreme Court Hears Challenge to GOP's 6-2 Congressional Map

Wisconsin Supreme Court Hears Challenge to GOP's 6-2 Congressional Map

A new front in the electoral-map wars opened this week in Wisconsin: on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two lawsuits claiming the state's eight U.S. House districts — which produce a 6-2 Republican delegation — are gerrymandered and must be redrawn. Both suits were dismissed by specially appointed three-judge circuit panels in March and April; the only question before the justices is whether those dismissals were right, but a win for the challengers would start a process that could redraw the map before 2028.

The two suits take different theories. The Elias Law Group suit argues classic partisan gerrymandering and that the "least changes" directive under which the current map was drawn in 2022 was invalid — because the court's current liberal majority overruled "least change" in its 2023 decision striking state legislative districts. Law Forward, representing Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy, advances a novel "anti-competitive gerrymander" theory: the map is designed to protect incumbents above all else, which it argues violates state constitution principles even if partisan intent can't be proved. Elias attorney Abha Khanna told WPR: "This is a map that Wisconsin voters will vote under in 2026 and 2028 and 2030, and as long as that map remains in effect, the injury is incurred anew with every election, and this court should go back and fix it." Law Forward's Doug Poland argued: "Elections for congressional and state legislative districts are supposed to be decided by voters in those districts, not by the legislators who seek to represent them, drawing the district boundaries to ensure that they prevail in elections."

Republicans — including the state's six GOP House members and the GOP-controlled legislature — argue the suits are repackaged partisan-gerrymandering claims the U.S. Supreme Court has already rejected, and warn that a ruling for the challengers would invite SCOTUS review.

What it means: Wisconsin is the mirror image of the GOP's mid-decade gerrymanders: Democrats using a newly liberal state supreme court (elected in 2025) to undo a Republican map¹, with the 2026 midterms' 6-2 delegation at stake for 2028. It's the same court-driven map warfare seen in Missouri's Trump-Backed Map: Dead for 2026 After Third SCOTUS Block — the Fight Is Over, But a Referendum on the Map Is Now on the Ballot and Republican Redistricting Victories in Florida and Virginia Lock in 2026 Midterm Advantages, and it's why both parties are fighting over state supreme court seats — the DLCC's target-state strategy (including Wisconsin) explicitly counts on these benches to enable pre-2028 redraws.