A Utah judge late Monday night rejected new congressional district lines drawn by Republican state lawmakers, instead approving a map with a solidly Democratic seat ahead of next year's midterm elections.
The ruling is a major blow for Republicans, who had designed a map to protect the state’s all-GOP congressional delegation. And it gives Democrats a boost as they attempt to respond to Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting efforts around the country and win control of the House in 2026.
The court-ordered map drawn by Republican state lawmakers would have resulted in four districts that were solidly or leaning Republican, though two would have been more competitive than the current iteration.
But Utah District Court Judge Dianna Gibson tossed that map in favor of one suggested by the plaintiffs in the case. She concluded that Republicans had impermissibly considered political data and gerrymandered in favor of their own party.
In its place, she chose a congressional map that includes a Democratic-leaning district anchored in northern Salt Lake County. According to court filings, it is approximately 43% Republican. Utah's current map splits the populous Salt Lake County into four districts.
Former Rep. Ben McAdams, a Democrat and former Salt Lake City mayor, is assessing the new lines and considering a congressional bid, according to a source familiar with his thinking.
The ruling is the latest in a yearslong legal battle over Utah’s anti-gerrymandering rules, which started long before the national redistricting arms race that has played out this year.
Utah voters narrowly approved a ballot initiative in 2018 that created an independent redistricting commission that recommends congressional maps and wrote anti-gerrymandering rules into law. The GOP-controlled Legislature has worked to circumvent the changes by weakening the commission and ignoring its proposed map after the 2020 census.
Advocates including the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government filed a lawsuit arguing that Republican lawmakers were gerrymandering in violation of the law. State courts agreed, culminating in the new map.
“Next year, instead of gerrymandered maps that diluted voters’ voices and kept communities divided, Utahns will finally have districts that give them a fair chance to elect representatives who truly reflect their values and priorities," said Elizabeth Rasmussen, executive director of Better Boundaries, the group that mobilized to put the anti-gerrymandering ballot measure before voters in 2018 and continues to fund the litigation in defense of it.
Utah Republican Party Chair Robert Axson slammed Gibson's ruling, saying it showed the ballot measure, known as "Prop 4," needs to be repealed.
"Prop 4 empowered unelected activists to overrule Utah voters and their elected representatives," Axson said in a statement. "This is bigger than than maps — it is a direct threat to our constitutional order. Prop 4 created this confusion; this ruling escalates it into a constitutional crisis."
Meanwhile, Democrats around the country celebrated the ruling.
“An enlightened Utah judge made clear last night that the people of Utah — not MAGA politicians — should decide who represents them in Congress,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a statement. “The court correctly enacted a fair map that reflects the geographical composition of Salt Lake County, instead of the current map that deliberately cracks communities of interest to artificially hand Republicans complete control of the congressional delegation.”
The court’s overnight ruling came just before the state’s election officials need to start preparing for next year’s primary elections Tuesday morning.
Utah and Ohio are the only two states that are required to redraw their maps this year. But they’ve had plenty of company, with Texas, Missouri and North Carolina enacting new maps to shore up the GOP’s narrow U.S. House majority at President Donald Trump’s urging.
In response, voters in California last week approved a new map designed to net Democrats up to five House seats. And Virginia Democrats last month took the first step toward a mid-decade redistricting effort.
Several Republican- and Democratic-led states are also considering redrawing their maps.
