A federal court Tuesday struck down the new Republican congressional map of Texas that aimed to flip up to five Democratic seats, ruling that the new districts amount to illegal racial gerrymandering aimed at limiting the power of Black and Latino voters.
In a surprise decision, the three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that the Lone Star State must use its previous map in the 2026 midterms and may not use the new one Texas Republicans ordered up at Trump’s urging to help maintain GOP control of the House of Representatives.
The ruling, which came after a two-week hearing, accused Texas lawmakers of illegally redrawing the state’s district lines to reduce the ability of minority voters to elect representatives of their choice.
“It was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map,” Justice Jeffrey Brown, a Galveston, Texas, district court judge appointed by Trump, wrote in the ruling.
An appeals court judge appointed by Ronald Reagan opposed the ruling while a Barack Obama-appointed district court judge agreed with Brown.
The ruling may only be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices on the top court would appear to have to act very quickly if they believe they should overturn the ruling because Texas election rules require candidates to file for runs by early December.
If it stands, the ruling would amount to a massive political blow to Trump and his Republican allies.
Trump started an unprecedented mid-decade redistricting war last summer when he ordered GOP lawmakers in Texas to redraw its map to expand its already healthy 25-13 margin to as much as 30-8.
The new map, enacted over the bitter objections of Democrats, scrapped three blue districts in the Dallas, Houston and Austin areas by packing Democratic voters into fewer districts. It also added Republican areas to two Democratic-held districts in the Rio Grande Valley in hopes of making it much more difficult for the Democratic incumbents to win reelection.
The Texas move triggered similar actions by Republicans in other red states, including moves that are likely flip one Democratic-held seat each in Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio.
Democrats struck back, most notably in California, where voters overwhelmingly passed a measure aimed at redrawing the deep blue Golden State’s districts to pick up five seats of their own.
Virginia may also redraw its map to scrap three or four Republican seats after Democrats won a crushing victory in this month’s off-year elections.
New York Democrats have also discussed rejiggering the Empire State’s congressional map to expand their 19-7 edge, but no changes could be enacted in time for the 2026 midterms.
It wasn’t immediately unclear how or if the Texas ruling may impact the politics surrounding other redistricting efforts or legal challenges to them.
In general, courts have ruled that racial gerrymandering is impermissible while the Supreme Court ruled that redistricting for purely partisan political reasons is not illegal. The justices are considering a separate case that could upend a key portion of the Voting Rights Act and would potentially allow Republicans to scrap many Black and Latino-held districts in red states.
Republicans hold only a narrow five-seat majority in the House, meaning Democrats could retake control if they flip just a handful of seats. That would potentially give them the power to frustrate Trump’s aggressive right-wing policy push in his second term.
