The U.S. Supreme Court just handed Texas a major win by greenlighting a new congressional district map that has Democrats seeing red.

In a 6-3 decision, the high court allowed Texas to roll out this map for the 2026 midterm elections, siding with Republican leaders over objections of racial gerrymandering from a lower court, as NBC News reports.

This story starts with Texas lawmakers, under encouragement from the Trump administration, crafting a map designed to potentially add up to five Republican seats in the House, where the GOP already holds a slim majority.

Texas Map Sparks Fierce Legal Battle

The map didn’t come without a fight -- six plaintiff groups, including the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Texas NAACP, sued, claiming the redistricting was racially motivated.

A lower court agreed, ruling 2-1 that the map likely violated the 14th Amendment, with a judge finding “substantial evidence” of racial gerrymandering at play.

But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wasn’t backing down, filing an emergency application to the Supreme Court, which hit pause on that lower court ruling on Nov. 21, before fully siding with Texas in this latest decision.

Supreme Court Majority Defends Texas Move

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority issued an unsigned order, arguing Texas is “likely to succeed on the merits” and chiding the lower court for not giving state lawmakers the benefit of the doubt.

Justice Samuel Alito, in a concurring opinion, suggested the map leaned more on partisan strategy than racial bias, a stance that aligns with a 2019 high court ruling allowing redistricting for political gain as long as race isn’t the main driver.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton cheered the ruling, declaring, “This map reflects the political climate of our state and is a massive win for Texas and every conservative who is tired of watching the left try to upend the political system with bogus lawsuits.” Well, Ken, it’s a win indeed, though one wonders if the “political climate” excuse holds when minority voters feel sidelined.

Dissenters Cry Foul on Minority Impact

Not everyone on the bench was waving pom-poms -- Justice Elena Kagan, joined by the court’s other liberal justices, dissented sharply, arguing the decision “disrespects the work of a district court that did everything one could ask” and “disserves the millions of Texans whom the district court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race.”

Kagan’s words sting, but let’s be real -- redistricting has always been a bare-knuckle political game, and the Supreme Court’s stance on timing, noting courts shouldn’t meddle close to elections, gives states like Texas a practical shield.

Meanwhile, Texas lawyers doubled down, arguing the map was purely partisan, not racial, and that judicial interference this late in the game is a no-go. Fair point -- elections wait for no one, but the optics of dismissing minority voter concerns aren’t exactly a good look.

Broader Context of Partisan Redistricting Emerges

Adding fuel to the fire, the Trump administration had pushed Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw maps outside the usual census cycle, even warning Texas earlier in 2025 of potential federal lawsuits if it didn’t scrap so-called “coalition districts” where nonwhite voters hold sway.

Critics like Thomas Saenz of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund slammed the ruling, suggesting it emboldens states to delay redistricting shenanigans until courts are too swamped to act.

It’s a clever jab at a system that sometimes rewards last-minute tactics over principled debate, though Texas would argue it’s just playing by the rules as they stand.