Judge Rules Utah Must Redraw Its Congressional Map, Frustrating Republicans

A judge in Utah has ruled that lawmakers must urgently redraw the state’s congressional map, saying that the Republican-controlled State Assembly ignored voter-approved safeguards against gerrymandering when it carved up a Democratic stronghold into four G.O.P.-majority districts.

The current map, adopted in 2021, divided a district that had encompassed Salt Lake City, the state’s biggest city and an island of Democratic support in an otherwise almost entirely red state. Republican lawmakers approved a map that split the area into four districts that each had a Republican majority.

No Democrat has won a U.S. House seat in Utah since 2018.

The ruling, which can be appealed, creates an opportunity for a new map that could help Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections, when Republicans will be fighting to hold onto their slim House majority.

It also makes Utah the latest battleground in a national fight over redistricting, as President Trump urges Republican officials to redo congressional maps in his party’s favor. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott is expected soon to sign into law a redrawn map that would deliver up to five House seats to Republicans, prompting Democrats in California to counter with their own new maps designed to offset those potential losses.

The decision in Utah came after the state’s Supreme Court said in July that the legislature had likely violated the state’s Constitution when it repealed a voter-approved measure known as Proposition Four, which required independent oversight of the redistricting process and forbade partisan gerrymandering.

In the judgment, issued on Monday, District Court Judge Dianna M. Gibson said Utah legislators were wrong to redraw the state’s boundaries without adhering to Proposition Four, and that the resulting map violated voters’ constitutional rights to participate in government.