The Supreme Court cleared the way for a voting map in Texas that could allow Republicans to win up to five additional seats in the House
WASHINGTON, D.C. (TIP): The Supreme Court on Thursday, December 4, handed President Donald Trump and Republicans a major political victory by clearing the way for a new Texas congressional map that was drawn in the hope of flipping up to five House seats to the GOP. “The District Court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections,” the court said in an unsigned order that put a lower court decision on hold.
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch wrote a separate concurrence.
The court’s three liberal justices strenuously objected. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the liberals, wrote, that Thursday’s order “disserves the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race.”
The order marks the latest development in a high-stakes battle between Republican and Democratic states that are seeking partisan advantage ahead of the 2026 midterms. The states are taking the unusual step of redistricting congressional seats at the halfway point between the U.S. Census Bureau’s nationwide surveys of the population, which occur every 10 years.
Trump sparked the fight when he pushed Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries as part of a bid to help the GOP maintain its narrow, five-seat advantage in the U.S. House during the contests next year.
Candidates have until Dec. 8 to file to run in next year’s races in Texas. The legal fight has upended planning about which districts candidates in both parties plan to compete in.
A divided panel of federal judges found last month that the new map improperly discriminated against Black and Latino residents. It ordered the state to revert to a map drawn in 2021 that is more favorable to Democrats. Republican officials in Texas quickly asked the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling.
Alito, who is the high court’s representative responsible for addressing emergency cases from the region, placed a temporary pause on the lower-court order Friday to give the justices more time to weigh Texas’s appeal.
Texas’s recent congressional map battle began during the summer after the Trump administration’s Justice Department sent a letter to the state threatening to sue. It said a handful of congressional districts that paired groups of Black and Latino voters to form a voting majority were unconstitutional.