SCOTUS allows Texas to use redrawn congressional redistricting map favoring GOP

Supreme Court signals Texas may prevail in defense of new congressional map; He accused the lower court of misreading the evidence and ignoring necessary legal inferences as the state approached its 2026 election deadline.

In a brief ruling that kept Gov. Greg Abbott’s redrawn districts in place for now, the court said the District Court made two major errors: first, by failing to apply the legal presumption of good faith in weighing disputed evidence, and second, by refusing to draw an almost definitive inference against challengers who did not present an alternative map that met Texas’ partisan goals.

The stay is temporary while the merits are pending, but Justice Elena Kagan cautioned in dissent that the decision effectively locks in disputed limits for the 2026 midterms due to looming state deadlines.

“The Court’s willingness to play a district court role here has serious consequences,” Kagen said. “The majority calls the ‘evaluation’ of this case ‘preliminary.’ But the results will be anything but that.”

DOJ SUPPORTS TEXAS IN SUPREME COURT FIGHT OVER REPUBLICAN-DRAWED MAP

Kagen continued: “This Court’s stay ensures that Texas’ new map, with all its enhanced partisan advantage, will govern next year’s House elections. And this Court’s stay ensures that many Texas citizens will be placed in electoral districts because of their race, for no good reason.” “And that result, as this Court has declared year after year, is a violation of the Constitution.”

The decision comes amid a broader, unprecedented national redistricting battle driven by current president Donald Trump’s effort to strengthen the GOP House majority heading into 2026 — a campaign that began in Texas before quickly spreading to other states.

Trump, who aimed to prevent what happened in his first term in the White House when Democrats regained the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections, first floated the rare but not unheard of idea of ​​congressional redistricting in the middle of the decade in June.

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Republican State Senator Phil King displays a map during the public testimony hearing of the Special Committee on Congressional Redistricting on August 7, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

The mission was simple: Redraw congressional district maps in red states to shore up the GOP’s slim House majority to maintain control of the chamber in the 2026 midterm elections, when the party in power has traditionally faced political adversity and lost seats.

Texas was Trump’s first target.

A month later, when asked by reporters about a plan to add seats to the Republican-leaning House of Representatives across the country, the president said: “Texas will be the biggest. And that’ll be five.”

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the GOP-dominated state legislature to pass the new map. Democratic state lawmakers broke the quorum for two weeks as they fled Texas in an attempt to delay passage of the redistricting bill.

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Governor Greg Abbott is seen in Midlothian, Texas, on November 14, 2025. (Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)

The legislature eventually passed the bill, and Abbott signed it into law in late August.

But the new map immediately faced legal challenges, and the plight of Texas lawmakers who fled the state galvanized Democrats across the country.

Among those joining the fight against Trump’s redistricting was California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.

A month ago, California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that would temporarily derail the left-leaning state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and return the power to draw congressional maps to the Democratic-dominated legislature.

This is expected to result in five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, aimed at countering Texas’ move to redraw its maps.

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California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at an election night press conference at the California Democratic Party office in Sacramento, Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo)

But the fight has spread beyond Texas and California.

Right-leaning Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio got new maps as part of the president’s efforts. The legislature in red-leaning Indiana is meeting this week to pass redistricting; Florida and Kansas are also considering redrawing their maps.

“We must protect the Majority at all costs,” Trump wrote on social media last month.

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Illinois and Maryland, two blue states, and Virginia, where Democrats control the legislature, are also taking steps or seriously considering redistricting.

And in a blow to Republicans, a Utah district judge last month rejected a congressional district map drawn up by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternative that would create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.