Court Blocks New Texas Congressional Map

A panel of federal judges in Texas on Tuesday blocked the state’s new GOP-favored House map from being used ahead of the 2026 midterms by declaring it a likely racial gerrymander, dealing a blow to Republicans who have looked to net extra seats.

In a 2-1 vote, the panel ordered Texas Republicans to use the congressional lines they had in place before they redistricted earlier this year. The new map would have offered Republicans up to five pickup opportunities in the House in 2026.

“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote for the majority.

“To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map,” he continued. “But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) quickly vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court, which is already considering wide-ranging questions about racial gerrymandering lawsuits in a long-running battle in Louisiana.

“This ruling is clearly erroneous and undermines the authority the U.S. Constitution assigns to the Texas Legislature by imposing a different map by judicial edict,” Abbott said in a statement.

Appointed to the bench by President Trump, Brown was joined by U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama, an appointee of former President Obama.

U.S. Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, an appointee of former President Reagan, dissented. His opinion was not immediately filed on the public docket.

The ruling is a significant defeat for Republicans, who moved to redraw the Texas map earlier this year. That move kicked off a national redistricting arms race, with California Democrats quickly moving to counter the Texas GOP with their own redrawn maps.

Republicans are bracing for a challenging midterm environment, and the redistricting effort — spearheaded by Trump, the White House and other national Republicans — has sought to give the party additional pickup opportunities.

The Texas map, which would have offered the GOP up to five pickup opportunities next year, was the first one that Republicans were able to successfully redraw and pass ahead of 2026. Republicans have also passed new maps in Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, though litigation could potentially halt new maps elsewhere.

Democrats quickly celebrated the court ruling.

“A federal court just stopped one of the most brazen attempts to steal our democracy that Texas has ever seen,” Texas House Minority Leader Gene Wu (D) said in a statement.

“Greg Abbott and his Republican cronies tried to silence Texans’ voices to placate Donald Trump, but now have delivered him absolutely nothing.”

The House Democrats’ campaign arm also praised the ruling, with Executive Director Julie Merz in a statement calling it a “a victory for voters across the state of Texas, particularly Black and Brown Texans.”

Tuesday’s ruling is the first time a court has blocked any of the new maps, but hearings are scheduled in other states in the coming weeks.

In Texas, the lawsuit was brought by individual voters, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Texas State Conference of the NAACP, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) and Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), among others.

The Supreme Court has ruled partisan gerrymanders are a political question the court cannot strike down, but the challengers raised claims of racial gerrymandering and vote dilution.

They contested districts around Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, the Interstate 35 corridor and the Gulf Coast.

Their case largely revolved around a letter Trump’s Justice Department sent Texas this summer contending some of its majority-minority districts were drawn unconstitutionally and urging the state to change their racial composition.

In the ruling, the majority wrote that Texas “immediately jumped on board” and followed through as Trump pushed for additional Republican seats, making the eventual design a likely racial gerrymander.

“The map ultimately passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor—the 2025 Map—achieved all but one of the racial objectives that DOJ demanded,” Brown wrote. “The Legislature dismantled and left unrecognizable not only all of the districts DOJ identified in the letter, but also several other ‘coalition districts’ around the State.”