The Supreme Court has temporarily halted a lower court’s order barring Texas from using its new congressional map for the 2026 elections after the state filed an emergency petition to the high court Friday evening.

The U.S. Supreme Court will now make a final decision on whether Texas can use its new congressional map, which was drawn this summer to benefit Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections. The outcome could have a huge impact on which party controls the U.

Republicans hope the U.S. Supreme Court will overrule a three-judge panel and bring the new map back into play, but the deadline for candidates to file is less than three weeks away, Dec. 8.

A Utah district judge is set to deliver a major ruling Monday on which of three congressional maps will be used in the state’s 2026 midterm elections — a decision that could determine whether Democrats have a shot at flipping one of Utah’s four Republican-held U.S. House seats.

The judges wrote that plaintiffs failed to prove lawmakers drew maps “with the discriminatory purpose of minimizing or canceling out the voting potential of Black North Carolinians.”

Texas officials preparing for elections under new congressional maps must quickly reverse course because of a federal court order blocking the use of the maps.