MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Since the 2024 presidential election, there has been a surge in Democratic voter turnout, especially among Black voters in the South. NPR's Stephen Fowler joins us to talk about how that increased turnout could shape key races next month. Good morning, Stephen.
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So why is turnout higher?
FOWLER: You know, part of it is about opposition to President Trump and his agenda, but there's also a Supreme Court decision that weakened part of the Voting Rights Act. Before that ruling, over the last year and a half, we did already see a notable increase in people voting for Democrats and Black voters showing up in elections in particular. Then the court ruled in Louisiana v. Callais, which made it harder to prove that race is a factor in gerrymandering. That led to new maps in Southern states like Florida and Tennessee and failed efforts in Georgia and South Carolina. All of that turbocharged those voters' motivations.
Ashley Kennedy Shelton, the founder of the Louisiana-based Power Coalition for Equity and Justice - they do nonpartisan civic engagement work - she said it definitely contributed to huge Black turnout in that state when there was a primary just a few weeks later and called it, quote, "personal" for Black voters.
ASHLEY KENNEDY SHELTON: Everybody's spending more money on their electricity bills, their gas bills, their food bills. I mean, all of these different things are really personally impacting voters. And I think that, you know, for all the folks that used to say, I don't do politics, I think they realize that politics is absolutely doing them, and they have to get involved, and we're seeing that increased involvement.
FOWLER: I mean, digging into the data elsewhere, you saw big turnout from Black voters and increased Democratic primary support in places like South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama.
MARTIN: So it's twofold. People are offended that they feel that there was an effort to kind of disenfranchise them, but also the basics, like how much things cost.
FOWLER: It's not just redistricting changes. You're right. I mean, Marcus Bass, I talked to him. He's the executive director of the North Carolina Black Alliance. He said he's also seeing signs of increased Black turnout there from folks who basically say, look, nothing feels great right now.
MARCUS BASS: I think more and more, we are finding - across the state - disaffected voters, individuals that feel that the political process has not improved their quality of life.
FOWLER: In North Carolina, there's a big state Supreme Court race, along with several U.S. House races that could change hands, including one explicitly targeted by Republicans through gerrymandering.
MARTIN: So it's a both-and situation. Increased Black turnout as kind of a reaction to what people see as an effort to limit their involvement. But these political maps - and so as you said, you know, people understanding that there's - the politics affects their lives, but also these political maps that effectively limit Black voting power in some of these states. So what do we think is the net result?
FOWLER: You know, both people I spoke with told me, you can't gerrymander a statewide race. And strategists I've spoken with point to places like the Georgia and Florida governors races and a number of U.S. Senate races where increased Black voter participation can make a difference in this very Democrat-friendly political environment. North Carolina, for example, has one of the largest raw number of Black voters, Bass points out.
BASS: So when we think about the Senate race and this pendulum shift that is happening nationally, there's a good chance that there are a lot of other races down ballot and a lot of other races across the South that are going to be more competitive than what was initially thought.
FOWLER: There's been a lot of attention on Congress majorities running through the Midwest, but, you know, the South's got something to say too.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Stephen Fowler in Atlanta. Thank you, Stephen.
FOWLER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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