Republicans can breathe a sigh of relief: The Supreme Court ruled Thursday, Dec. 4 to allow the Trump-ordered redistricted congressional map to stand while the legal battle over it continues. After a three-judge district court in El Paso blocked the map in mid-November, stating that the state had racially gerrymandered the map, Justice Samuel Alito temporarily restored the proposal after Greg Abbott and the state filed an emergency appeal.
Now, the map is on for the 2026 primaries. It is expected to flip five seats for the Republicans.
Concurring with the court’s decision, Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, wrote, “the dissent does not dispute – because it is indisputable – that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple.”
Shortly after, he stated that, “experts could have easily produced such a map if that were possible, they did not, giving rise to a strong inference that the State’s map was indeed based on partisanship, not race.”
Justice Elena Kagan disagrees. Dissenting from the ruling, Kagan was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“Today’s order disserves the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race,” Kagan wrote.
The Republican redistricting scheme spells the end to Austin sending two Congressional representatives to D.C. – currently elder statesman Lloyd Doggett and rising star Greg Casar, whose district (which reaches into San Antonio) was one of the ones targeted by GOP mapmakers. After the lower court’s ruling, 79-year-old Doggett said he intended to run to keep representing CD 37, but yesterday’s Supreme Court decision makes the much-loved local rep’s retirement official.
“I will continue working with the same urgency and determination as if next year were my last, which in public office it will be,” he wrote in a statement.
Since the decision was announced, countless reactions have rolled in from Democratic leaders and lawmakers throughout the state – many of whom are running in these high-stakes midterm elections.
State Senator Sarah Eckhardt, currently campaigning to represent CD 10, criticized Greg Abbott and the Legislature in a press release for working “overtime to loyally serve the president rather than loyally serving everyday Texans.”
Also in response, attorney general candidate Tony Box said that he is disappointed in the decision to uphold “an illegal map to rig the 2026 elections.”
“This is pure corruption – politicians manipulating our democracy for their own benefit while turning the Attorney General’s office into a laughingstock,” he wrote in a statement.
State Rep. Vikki Goodwin, on the campaign trail for lieutenant governor, condemned the Supreme Court for yielding to Trump’s desires to gerrymander multiple states.
“Once again we are seeing that the separation of powers is a figment of our imagination. The Supreme Court is beholden to the wishes and demands of Donald Trump,” she wrote in a press release.
State Rep. James Talarico and former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred – the leading candidates in a crowded Senate race that could get even more crowded soon – both issued statements following the map’s reinstatement.
Allred, a voting rights lawyer, said the decision “is a setback for representation and for every Texan who believes their vote should count just as much as anyone else’s,” but used the moment as a motivator: “We have to organize, vote, and demand better.”
Talarico echoed the sentiment that all is not lost: “We’ll keep fighting these corrupt maps, fighting for every Texas voter, and fighting alongside states across the country until partisan gerrymandering is finally banned in America.”