The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to move forward with using its new congressional map in next year’s elections, granting a significant victory to state Republicans and President Donald Trump even as a lower court found the plan was likely drawn to diminish the influence of Black and Latino voters.
The unsigned order, issued as part of an emergency appeal, pauses a 2–1 ruling that had blocked the map. Texas officials had urged the court to act quickly, noting that candidate qualifying for the March primaries is already underway.
Justice Samuel Alito had previously issued a temporary administrative stay while the full court weighed the request. The high court’s decision follows a pattern in recent years in which it has halted lower-court rulings in redistricting disputes close to election deadlines, including in Alabama and Louisiana. The Texas plan, enacted last summer at Trump’s urging, is designed to give Republicans five additional U.S. House seats and has become a flashpoint in a broader, nationwide fight over political maps ahead of the 2026 elections.
Texas was the first state to meet Trump’s call for aggressive partisan remapping, and several others soon followed. North Carolina and Missouri each approved maps expected to add a Republican seat, while California voters backed a ballot measure projected to give Democrats five new seats. Those maps, like Texas’, have been challenged in court. A three-judge panel has allowed North Carolina to use its new districts in 2026, while litigation continues in California and Missouri. The Trump administration is suing to block California’s changes but urged the Supreme Court to leave Texas’s map intact during its appeal.
The justices are also considering a separate Louisiana case that could further narrow how race may be considered under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, an outcome that could ripple through the current redistricting cycle. For now, the Texas map will remain in place despite a sharply worded ruling from two lower-court judges who determined that the plan likely violates the Constitution by diluting minority voting strength.
U.S. District Judges Jeffrey V. Brown and David Guaderrama found that the state’s mapmakers engaged in racial gerrymandering when drawing new districts. Brown, appointed by Trump, wrote that while partisan politics clearly influenced the process, “it was much more than just politics,” concluding that extensive evidence showed intentional discrimination. Guaderrama, appointed by President Barack Obama, joined the opinion.
The decision prompted an unusually blistering dissent from Judge Jerry Smith, a Reagan appointee on the three-judge panel. Smith accused Brown of “pernicious judicial misbehavior” for issuing the ruling before he believed adequate deliberation had occurred.
On the merits, he criticized the majority’s findings as so unfounded that, he wrote, they “would be a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Fiction.” He added that “the main winners” from blocking the map would be liberal donor George Soros and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, while “the obvious losers are the People of Texas and the Rule of Law.”
With the Supreme Court’s intervention, Texas voters will cast ballots under the new map next year unless the justices later rule otherwise — a decision that could have major implications for the fight over control of the U.S. House.
This is a breaking news story. Updates to follow.
This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.
