By John Kruzel WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court revived on Thursday a redrawn Texas electoral map designed to add more Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives, boosting President Donald Trump's quest for his party to keep control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. The justices granted a request by Texas officials to lift a lower court's ruling that had blocked the state from using the Trump-backed map, which could flip as many as five currently Democratic-held U.S. House seats to Republicans. The lower court concluded that the map likely was racially discriminatory in violation of U.S. constitutional protections. Republicans currently hold slim majorities in both chambers of Congress. Ceding control of either the House or Senate to the Democrats in the November 2026 elections would endanger Trump's legislative agenda and open the door to Democratic-led congressional investigations targeting the president. The Supreme Court's ruling comes amid a nationwide battle unfolding in Republican-governed and Democratic-led states involving the redrawing of electoral maps to change the population composition of congressional districts for partisan advantage. Justice Samuel Alito on November 21 temporarily paused the lower court's ruling as the Supreme Court weighed how to proceed with the case. Redrawing the boundaries of electoral districts in a state is a process called redistricting. There have been legal fights at the Supreme Court for decades over a practice called gerrymandering - the redrawing of district boundaries in order to marginalize a certain set of voters and increase the influence of others. The Supreme Court in a 2019 ruling declared that gerrymandering for partisan reasons - to boost the electoral chances of one's own party and weaken one's political opponent - cannot be challenged in federal courts. But gerrymandering driven primarily by race remains unlawful under the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law and 15th Amendment prohibition on racial discrimination in voting. Many Texas Republican lawmakers have said the new map was devised in response to Trump's request to redraw electoral maps for a partisan advantage in House races. But the El Paso-based court ruled 2-1 on November 18 that the map likely amounted to an unlawful racial gerrymander, siding with civil rights groups that sued to block it. Each of the 50 U.S. states is represented in Congress by two U.S. senators, with representation in the 435-seat House based on population. California, the most-populous state, has the most House members with 52, while Texas is second with 38. Republicans currently hold 25 of 38 U.S. House seats in Texas.
