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.
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. A district court agreed with the plaintiffs and ordered the Legislature to draw a new map.
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.
Republicans have also vowed to pursue a ballot initiative to undo the anti-gerrymandering measure voters passed in 2018.
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.
