High court’s decision will affect the 2026 midterm elections
The Supreme Court signaled that Texas is likely to prevail in defending its new congressional map, faulting a lower court for misreading evidence and ignoring required legal inferences as the state races toward 2026 election deadlines.
In a brief order that keeps Gov. Greg Abbott’s redrawn districts in place for now, the court said the district court committed two major errors by failing to apply the presumption of legislative good faith when considering disputed evidence and by declining to draw a near-dispositive inference against challengers who offered no alternative map that met Texas’s partisan goals.
The stay is temporary while the merits proceed, yet Justice Elena Kagan warned in dissent that the ruling effectively locks in the contested boundaries for the 2026 midterms because of looming state deadlines.
“This Court’s eagerness to playact a district court here has serious consequences,” Kagan said. “The majority calls its ‘evaluation’ of this case ‘preliminary.’ The results, though, will be anything but.