The Supreme Court has already handed Republicans a major election-year advantage in a voting rights case and is expected to decide two more disputes that could affect mail voting rules and campaign spending before the November midterms.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The U.S. Supreme Court could reshape the rules governing the November midterm elections through a series of decisions affecting congressional maps, mail-in ballots and campaign spending, with Republicans seeking gains as they defend narrow majorities in Congress.
The court has already issued one major election-related ruling this year that helped President Donald Trump’s party, and two additional cases pending before the justices could further alter the political landscape ahead of the Nov. 3 elections, according to a Reuters report.
The next rulings, expected by around the end of June, involve a Mississippi mail-ballot law and limits on coordinated campaign spending by political parties. Both cases were brought by Republicans, and both could affect how campaigns are run in the final months before voters decide control of the House and Senate.
Republicans currently hold slim majorities in both chambers. If Democrats capture either the House or Senate, they could block parts of Trump’s legislative agenda and launch investigations into his administration.
One of the pending cases challenges Mississippi rules that allow mailed ballots to be counted after Election Day if they are postmarked by Election Day and received within five business days. Republican Party officials argue federal laws setting Election Day preempt state laws that allow ballots to arrive later.
The case comes as Trump has continued to criticize mail voting, despite rare evidence of voter fraud. Mail ballots have been used by voters in both parties, including rural and older Republicans, but Democratic voters have used the method at higher rates in recent elections.
According to the MIT Election Lab, 37% of Democratic voters cast ballots by mail in 2024, compared with 24% of Republicans. During the 2020 election, held during the COVID-19 pandemic, 60% of Democratic voters and 32% of Republican voters used mail ballots.
Trump signed an executive order in March seeking tighter mail voting rules, prompting legal challenges over whether the order intrudes on states’ constitutional authority to run elections.
During arguments in the Mississippi case, a majority of the justices appeared prepared to invalidate the state’s grace-period law. The National Conference of State Legislatures says 14 states, along with Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C., count mailed ballots that arrive after Election Day if they are postmarked on or before, or sometimes before, Election Day.
Travis Crum, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, said the court could strike down Mississippi’s law while allowing it to remain in place for the midterms under the Purcell principle, a legal doctrine that cautions courts against changing election rules too close to Election Day because of the risk of voter confusion.
The Democratic National Committee warned in a legal filing that a Republican victory in the case could have “disastrous consequences.” The committee said a strict Election Day receipt deadline could disenfranchise large numbers of voters, “including military voters stationed away from home, overseas citizens, rural voters, elderly and disabled voters, and voters lacking reliable transportation.”
Chris McIsaac, a researcher at the libertarian R Street Institute, said requiring mailed ballots to arrive by Election Day is reasonable, but he said changing the rule months before voting begins could create problems for election administrators.
“All of the voter communications and information that election offices publish in advance of elections that give the instructions for when ballots are due – that stuff happens pretty far in advance,” McIsaac said. “Some of that would need to be reprinted.”
The second pending case centers on campaign finance restrictions and was brought by Vice President JD Vance and other Republicans. Vance was running for the U.S. Senate in Ohio in 2022 when he and other challengers sued over limits on coordinated party expenditures.
The dispute involves restrictions on how much political parties may spend on campaigns when the spending is coordinated with the candidates they support. Under the 1971 federal election law, political party spending for or against a candidate is not capped if it is independent and not coordinated with a campaign. Coordinated spending between parties and candidates, however, is restricted.
Supporters of those limits say they are needed to prevent corruption by stopping wealthy donors from moving large sums through party committees to help favored candidates while evading direct contribution limits.
Republicans argue the restrictions violate First Amendment protections for political speech. The Supreme Court has previously accepted similar arguments in campaign finance cases, including its 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, which allowed corporations, unions and other outside groups to spend unlimited money on elections.
Dan Backer, a conservative election law attorney who has represented Republican candidates and right-leaning organizations, said removing coordinated spending limits would empower political parties, which he said “have a generally moderating impact” on American politics compared with special interest groups.
“The overall political system is benefited by very strong parties,” Backer said.
During December arguments, conservative justices appeared receptive to the First Amendment challenge. Timothy Johnson, a University of Minnesota political science professor, said a Republican victory appears likely and could allow the party to use its financial advantage quickly.
Three major Republican committees — the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee — ended April with $251 million in cash and no debt. Their Democratic counterparts had about $125 million on hand and more than $17 million in debt.
“There certainly is an advantage, monetarily, on the Republican side in terms of the party committees,” Johnson said. “Once that ruling comes down, there could be coordination between those committees and candidates pretty instantaneously.”
Johnson said strong fundraising by some Democratic candidates in prominent races could limit the practical effect of a ruling favoring Republicans.
Election law specialists also said a decision removing coordinated spending limits could lead party committees to seek the discounted television and radio advertising rates available to candidates, though that question has not been legally tested.
The Supreme Court’s most immediate election-year ruling came in April, when its 6-3 conservative majority issued a decision in a Louisiana voting rights case that weakened a central provision of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling made it harder to challenge congressional maps as racially discriminatory under the landmark civil rights law.
The decision gave Republicans an immediate advantage by making it easier for Republican-led state legislatures to dismantle Democratic-held House districts with large Black or Latino populations in the South. Black and Hispanic voters tend to support Democratic candidates.
Crum described the decision as a “boon for Republicans.”
The ruling could help Republicans gain as many as a dozen House seats now held by Democrats through redistricting, the process of redrawing election district boundaries.
At the same time, Republicans face political headwinds heading into November, including Trump’s low approval ratings in public opinion polls, higher gasoline prices tied to the Iran war and the historical pattern of the president’s party losing seats in midterm elections.
Together, the redistricting decision and the pending cases on mail ballots and campaign finance could leave the Supreme Court with an unusually direct role in shaping the rules, resources and electoral maps that will define the midterm elections.
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