The Supreme Court has allowed Texas to use a newly drawn congressional map that could help Republicans pick up as many as five additional U.S. House seats in the 2026 midterms.
In an unsigned order issued Thursday, the court granted Texas’s emergency request to pause a three-judge federal panel’s ruling that had blocked the map. That lower court, after a nine-day hearing in October, found challengers were likely to prove at trial that the redrawn districts unlawfully discriminated on the basis of race and directed the state to revert to the 2021 congressional map for the next election.
The panel’s majority, written by a Trump appellate nominee, relied in part on a Justice Department letter and public remarks by prominent Republican state lawmakers. Those materials, the panel said, suggested the map-drawer altered racial compositions to eliminate districts where Black and Latino voters were a combined majority. Texas argued to the Supreme Court that the lawmakers were driven by partisan objectives—to create districts more likely to elect Republicans—rather than racial motives.
The high court sided with Texas, concluding the three-judge panel “failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature.” The Supreme Court also criticized the lower court for issuing its injunction during candidate filing, saying that timing improperly disrupted an active primary and upset the federal-state balance in election administration.
Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented. Kagan accused the majority of overturning the panel’s decision after a cursory review and warned the outcome will place many Texans in districts defined by race, which she said raises constitutional concerns.
Earlier this month Justice Samuel Alito had temporarily allowed Texas to reinstate the new map while the Supreme Court considered the emergency application. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton hailed Thursday’s order as a conservative victory and said the GOP-drawn plan reflects the state’s political realities. Democrats criticized the move; DCCC chair Rep. Suzan DelBene said Texans oppose the map and accused national Republicans of using litigation to blunt minority voting power and protect their House majority.
The Texas dispute is part of a broader wave of mid-decade map fights. California voters approved a new congressional map that could net Democrats five seats and faces a court challenge scheduled for Dec. 15. Other states with active or potential redistricting litigation include Missouri, Florida, Indiana and Virginia. A federal court recently cleared North Carolina to use a new map that may give Republicans an extra seat. The Supreme Court is also weighing a voting-rights case tied to Louisiana’s map; an unusually expedited timeline could affect whether some GOP-led legislatures can implement new maps before the 2026 midterms.
Edited by Benjamin Swasey