(Win McNamee – Pool – AFP / Getty Images)

The High Points:

• The Supreme Court allowed Texas’ new congressional map to stand while litigation continues.

• The Court said challengers failed to overcome the presumption of legislative good faith.

• The ruling strengthens GOP chances heading into the 2026 midterms.

For once, Republicans walked out of the Supreme Court with a win that actually matters. Texas’ new congressional map—designed to give the GOP five likely pickups—was under attack, and a lower court had already tried to sideline it in the middle of an active primary season. The Supreme Court effectively said, “Not so fast,” restoring the map and calling out the district court for overstepping its bounds and creating chaos where none was necessary.

The dissent from the liberal justices was predictable: claims of racial gerrymandering, claims the majority didn’t read enough pages, the usual greatest hits. But Alito nailed the core issue—this was a partisan map, not a racial one, and challengers couldn’t produce a viable alternative that met the same political goals without supposedly discriminatory effects. That silence spoke volumes.

With this ruling, Republicans are now positioned to gain up to nine seats nationwide. Democrats can cry foul, but the map is moving forward.

From Western Journal:

The Supreme Court on Thursday handed Republicans a major victory in the multi-state chess game of redrawing congressional district lines ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Earlier this year, Texas approved a new map that — based on existing enrollments — would create five districts where Republicans are likely to prevail. The new map was the subject of a lawsuit, which reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Texas is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that the District Court committed at least two serious errors,” the unsigned opinion said.

The ruling is not the final word in the case but stays an appeal that would have set the new map aside while the lawsuit proceeds through the courts.

The opinion said that the District Court that ruled against Texas “failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith by constructing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature.”

Moreover, it added, the lower court “improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections.”

The ruling said the state “made a strong showing of irreparable harm and that the equities and public interest favor it.”

Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. She claimed the decision was reached by the majority “based on its perusal, over a holiday weekend, of a cold paper record.”

“Today’s order disrespects the work of a District Court that did everything one could ask to carry out its charge — that put aside every consideration except getting the issue before it right,” Kagan wrote.

“And today’s order disserves the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race,” the dissent said.

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, said the dissenters erred in saying that race was at the heart of the new map.

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