A Utah judge late Monday rejected a congressional map that state Republican lawmakers had passed last month and ordered the adoption of a new map before next year’s midterm elections that is likely to give Democrats a U.S. House seat.
The ruling is a win for Democrats, who have not won a House seat in the conservative state since 2021, and a blow for Republicans in the broader national redistricting battle between the parties ahead of next year’s midterms. Lawmakers in Republican- and Democratic-led states have looked in recent months for opportunities to gain seats as Republicans try to defend a very narrow U.S. House majority.
A Utah judge late Monday rejected a congressional map that state Republican lawmakers had passed last month and ordered the adoption of a new map before next year’s midterm elections that is likely to give Democrats a U.S. House seat.
The ruling is a win for Democrats, who have not won a House seat in the conservative state since 2021, and a blow for Republicans in the broader national redistricting battle between the parties ahead of next year’s midterms. Lawmakers in Republican- and Democratic-led states have looked in recent months for opportunities to gain seats as Republicans try to defend a very narrow U.S. House majority.
The new map in Utah keeps most of heavily Democratic Salt Lake County within a single district, rather than divide it into four districts as it is currently.
In a joint statement Tuesday, Utah Senate and House Democrats said they felt “a deep sense of hope and relief” following the ruling and called it “a win for every Utahn.”
National Democrats also applauded the new map Tuesday.
“Donald Trump and his corrupt sycophants are working overtime to gerrymander congressional maps across the country in a desperate attempt to rig the midterm elections. Democrats are fighting back — and we are winning,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) said in a statement.
In a statement, the Utah Republican Party blasted the ruling by District Court Judge Dianna M. Gibson as “the arrogance of a judge playing King from the bench.” Gibson was appointed in 2018 by a Republican governor.
“We will boldly, lawfully, and relentlessly work to restore constitutional government and protect Utahns’ right to self-govern,” party chairman Robert Axson said. “We invite Judge Gibson to leave the bench and run for the legislature to pursue her policy preferences.”
Axson called for the repeal of Proposition 4, an initiative Utah voters approved in 2018 that required the state to draw lines neutrally.
The Utah ruling offers a warning to partisans in other states that the redistricting battle they are engaged in is risky. Texas Republicans in August approved a map at the behest of President Donald Trump that would give them up to five more GOP seats in the U.S. House. California Democrats retaliated by drawing a map that would provide them with up to five more seats for their party, and voters overwhelmingly approved it last week.
Several other red and blue states are considering drawing new maps as well. Republicans now control the U.S. House 219-213 with three vacancies — a margin that will narrow once Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Arizona) is sworn in — and changes to how a handful of maps are drawn could be enough to decide who wins a majority next year.
The ruling is the latest twist in a Utah redistricting fight that has gone on for more than seven years — long before more recent attempts to gain advantage ahead of next year’s midterms.
Two years after Proposition 4 passed, GOP state lawmakers repealed it and replaced it with a law that gave them more leeway on how to draw lines. In 2021, Utah state lawmakers adopted the map that is currently in use, and Republicans now hold all four congressional seats in the state. Last year, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that the state legislature infringed on the rights of Utahns when it gutted Proposition 4, and it sent the case back to Utah’s 3rd District Court.
In August, Gibson ruled that the map from 2021 violated the state’s constitution and ordered Proposition 4 reinstated as “the law on redistricting in Utah.” The Republican-led legislature was ordered to redraw the map, and it adopted one in October that could have resulted in more-competitive races but still favored the GOP in all four districts.
In her ruling Monday, Gibson wrote that the GOP-passed map from October was “drawn with the purpose to favor Republicans … and it unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats.”
To comply with a Monday deadline for a map to be finalized in time for the midterm elections, Gibson ordered the adoption of a new map that had been submitted by the plaintiffs, which included the League of Women Voters of Utah, and Mormon Women for Ethical Government.
The new map, Gibson wrote, abides by “neutral redistricting criteria to the greatest extent practicable” and “has neither the purpose nor effect of unduly favoring or disfavoring a political party.” She noted that it was configured by a computer algorithm programmed to adhere to the state law’s neutral redistricting criteria.
Emma Adams, co-executive director of Mormon Women for Ethical Government, said the ruling sets Utah apart from the broader gerrymandering battle occurring nationally.
“Today the people of Utah are getting what we voted for seven years ago: a fair map,” Adams said at a news conference Tuesday. “Utah is a special place. At a time when politicians are rushing to gerrymander their states for political advantage all over the country, a cross-partisan group of Utah citizens — Republicans, Democrats, independents — are finally seeing the fruits of their persistence and years-long commitment to do the opposite.”
Patrick Svitek contributed to this report.
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