The Supreme Court has allowed Texas to move forward with its new congressional map, a GOP-favored design that could create as many as five additional Republican House seats. The ruling, issued Thursday, lets the map be used in the upcoming midterm elections while the legal battle continues.
The majority of the Court said a lower federal court likely made a mistake when it struck down the map as an improper racial gerrymander. In its unsigned order, the Court said the lower court disrupted an ongoing primary season and upset the balance between federal and state authority in election matters.
The decision is not the Court’s final ruling on the case, but it clears the way for Texas to use the new districts for its March primary while the state appeals.
Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, sharply criticized the decision in dissent. Kagan said the majority stepped in after reviewing only a limited written record over a holiday weekend and dismissed the work of a district court that thoroughly examined the evidence. She added that the order harms millions of Texans whose district assignments, according to the lower court, were based on race.
Three conservative justices — Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch — issued a brief response supporting Texas. Alito wrote that the dissent ignored the central reality that the map was driven by partisan strategy, not racial motives.
The dispute began earlier this year after pressure from the White House and national Republicans for Texas to redraw its map mid-decade. The goal was to strengthen GOP chances in a tough election cycle. Texas lawmakers approved the new map over the summer, creating several new Republican-leaning districts and prompting other states to consider similar moves.
Republicans believe they could gain as many as nine House seats from new maps nationwide: five in Texas, two in Ohio, one in North Carolina, and one in Missouri. Florida and Indiana lawmakers are also preparing to take up redistricting proposals after strong encouragement from President Trump and his allies.
Democrats, meanwhile, expect gains from their own map changes, including five seats in California and one in Utah.
Both parties are suing one another over various maps across the country, creating a turbulent landscape as filing deadlines approach. Candidates must decide quickly where to run and how to reintroduce themselves to voters in shifted districts.
In Texas, six groups — including the Texas NAACP, LULAC, and individual Black and Latino voters — challenged the map. After a nine-day hearing, a panel of federal judges found the map likely unconstitutional, concluding the state changed certain districts because of concerns raised by the Justice Department about their multiracial makeup.
The lower court’s ruling would have forced Texas to revert to its previous map for the midterms. One judge on the panel dissented strongly, accusing his colleagues of mishandling the case.
Gov. Greg Abbott appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the lower court waited too long and risked throwing the election calendar into chaos. Candidate filing closes next week, and other deadlines for the March 3 primary are fast approaching.
The Trump administration backed Abbott, insisting the map was legal and that this was an easy case for the Court.
Opponents of the map argued the opposite. They said there was no emergency, that deadlines would remain intact, and that the lower court properly identified a racial gerrymander. The Texas NAACP argued that lawmakers targeted the exact districts flagged by the Justice Department and weakened the voting strength of Black and Latino communities.
Justice Alito had already temporarily reinstated the map while the Court reviewed the emergency appeal.