How the Supreme Court has shaped the midterm map, from voting rights to Missouri

Voters head into the Nov. 3 midterms after an election season shaped heavily by the Supreme Court, and Republicans have generally fared better in the major cases, according to a Reuters analysis.

Democrats need a net gain of four seats in each chamber to take control of the House and Senate, Reuters noted.

Rulings that helped Republicans

The court also allowed Texas to use its new Republican-drawn House map, which the state adopted at Trump's urging, Reuters reported.

Rulings that went the other way

The justices endorsed grace periods for mail ballots in June and in September turned away a Trump-backed effort to restrict mail voting, according to Reuters. They also allowed California's new Democratic-leaning map.

On Sept. 25, the court again blocked Missouri's Republican-drawn map, which would have favored the GOP in seven of the state's eight House districts, CBS News reported. The unsigned order had no noted dissents. Missouri will use its 2022 district lines because ballots had already been printed and mailed.

Sharp words from the bench

Justice Elena Kagan, speaking at Catholic University, said the conservative majority was making "a too-polarized country even more so," Reuters reported. University of Illinois Chicago law professor Steve Schwinn told Reuters the rulings had "decidedly tilted the political playing field." George Mason University's Ilya Somin said many reflected long-held conservative legal priorities and predicted more election litigation.