A sharply divided Supreme Court said Thursday that it would allow Texas to use a new congressional map that targets five seats held by Democrats in next year’s midterms.

The brief, unsigned order paused a ruling from a lower court that had found the state’s new map was likely an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and ordered the state to use its map from 2021.

The order hinted the Supreme Court would not take part in a rising wave of redistricting “in ways that are predicted to favor the State’s dominant political party” that started with Texas’ passage of a new map in August.

The order Thursday said, “based on our preliminary evaluation of this case,” the three-judge panel that made the ruling committed two serious errors when it found the state had likely improperly used race to

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