The funny thing about the ruling is that if Texas had just been upfront and said “yup, political gerrymander” rather than trying to make it about the DOJ’s threats re: coalition districts they would have been fine. SCOTUS has already said that political-targeted districting is fine, even in states covered by the VRA.
But since Texas apparently cited the extremely messed-up DOJ memo as their reason for doing the redistricting, there is now “significant factual evidence” that the reason for doing the new maps was to dilute racial minorities voting rights. And that’s a pretty clear violation of the VRA (for now, at least).
I guess the question is whether SCOTUS will stay this ruling prior to the 2026 election or keep it in place until they rule on the merits. With the Dec deadline for candidates registering and the lack of any harm to the state that I can think of if the ruling isn’t stayed, I would imagine it will likely stay in place. Much easier to argue that proceeding with the new maps could cause irreparable harm than that using the old ones will, while the litigation is playing out. But with this SCOTUS, who knows.