List of majority-minority United States congressional districts

A majority‑minority congressional district is a United States congressional district in which racial or ethnic minorities together make up more than half of the population. Some of these districts have been drawn to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits districting plans that dilute the ability of racial or language minorities to elect candidates of their choice. However, not all majority‑minority districts are mandated by the Act; many result from demographic patterns or partisan considerations.

As of the 119th Congress (2025), there are 120 majority‑minority congressional districts. Only a fraction of these districts are mandated by the Voting Rights Act — about 30 to 40 nationwide — while the remainder are partisan‑constructed or demographic outcomes.

The adoption of majority‑minority districts is contested both within and outside minority communities. Critics argue that such districts can dilute minority political power by “packing” voters into fewer districts, or that they resemble racial segregation. Supporters contend that they are necessary to ensure minorities can elect representatives and achieve descriptive representation in the House of Representatives.

Majority‑minority districts have been the subject of significant constitutional litigation, including Shaw v. Reno (1993), Miller v. Johnson (1995), and Bush v. Vera (1996), which examined the balance between Voting Rights Act compliance and constitutional limits on racial gerrymandering.

Notes:

• Estimates of VRA‑mandated districts vary because the determination depends on applying the Thornburg v. Gingles test (1986), which requires that a minority group be sufficiently large, geographically compact, politically cohesive, and consistently outvoted.
• Scholars and legal analysts generally place the number of mandated districts between 30 and 40 nationwide, with the remainder arising from partisan map‑drawing or demographic concentration.