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															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 15–1262

															_________________

															ROY COOPER, GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA,
et al., APPELLANTS v. DAVID HARRIS, et al.

															on appeal from the united states district
court for the middle district of north carolina

															[May 22, 2017]

															Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the
Court.

															The Constitution entrusts States with the job of
designing congressional districts. But it also imposes an important
constraint: A State may not use race as the predominant factor in
drawing district lines unless it has a compelling reason. In this
case, a three-judge District Court ruled that North Carolina
officials violated that bar when they created two districts whose
voting-age populations were majority black. Applying a deferential
standard of review to the factual findings underlying thatdecision,
we affirm.

															I

															A

															The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment limits racial gerrymanders in legislative districting
plans. It prevents a State, in the absence of “sufficient
justification,” from “separating its citizens into different voting
districts on the basis of race.” Bethune-Hill v. Virginia
State Bd. of Elections , 580 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (slip
op., at 6) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). When
a voter sues state officials for drawing such race-based lines, our
decisions call for a two-step analysis.

															First, the plaintiff must prove that “race was
the predominant factor motivating the legislature’s decision to
place a significant number of voters within or without a particular
district.” Miller v. Johnson , 515 U. S. 900, 916
(1995) . That entails demonstrating that the legislature
“subordinated” other factors—compactness, respect for political
subdivisions, partisan advantage, what have you—to “racial
considerations.” Ibid. The plaintiff may make the required
showing through “direct evidence” of legislative intent,
“circumstantial evidence of a district’s shape and demographics,”
or a mix of both. Ibid. [ 1 ]

															Second, if racial considerations predominated
over others, the design of the district must withstand strict
scrutiny. See Bethune-Hill , 580 U. S., at ____ (slip op., at
13). The burden thus shifts to the State to prove that its
race-based sorting of voters serves a “compelling interest” and is
“narrowly tailored” to that end. Ibid . This Court has long
assumed that one compelling interest is complying with operative
provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA or Act), 79Stat.
437, as amended, 52 U. S. C. §10301 et seq . See, e.g., Shaw v. Hunt , 517 U. S. 899, 915
(1996) ( Shaw II ).

															Two provisions of the VRA—§2 and §5—are involved
in this case. §§10301, 10304. Section 2 prohibits any “standard,
practice, or procedure” that “results in a denial or abridgement of
the right . . . to vote on account of race.” §10301(a).
We have construed that ban to extend to “vote dilution”—brought
about, most relevantly here, by the “dispersal of [a group’s
members] into districts in which they constitute an ineffective
minority of voters.” Thornburg v. Gingles , 478 U. S.
30 , n. 11 (1986). Section 5, at the time of the districting
in dispute, worked through a different mechanism. Before this Court
invalidated its coverage formula, see Shelby County v. Holder , 570 U. S. __ (2013), that section required certain
jurisdictions (including various North Carolina counties) to
pre-clear voting changes with the Department of Justice, so as to
forestall “retrogression” in the ability of racial minorities to
elect their preferred candidates, Beer v. United
States , 425 U. S. 130, 141 (1976) .

															When a State invokes the VRA to justify
race-based districting, it must show (to meet the “narrow
tailoring” requirement) that it had “a strong basis in evidence”
for concluding that the statute required its action. Alabama
Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama , 575 U. S. ___,
___ (2015) (slip op., at 22). Or said otherwise, the State must
establish that it had “good reasons” to think that it would
transgress the Act if it did not draw race-based district
lines. Ibid . That “strong basis” (or “good reasons”)
standard gives States “breathing room” to adopt reasonable
compliance measures that may prove, in perfect hindsight, not to
have been needed. Bethune-Hill , 580 U. S., at ___ (slip
op., at 16).

															A district court’s assessment of a districting
plan, in accordance with the two-step inquiry just described,
warrants significant deference on appeal to this Court.[ 2 ] We of course retain full power to
correct a court’s errors of law, at either stage of the analysis.
But the court’s findings of fact—most notably, as to whether racial
considerations predominated in drawing district lines—are subject
to review only for clear error. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 52(a)(6); Easley v. Cromartie , 532 U. S. 234, 242 (2001)
( Cromartie II ); id., at 259 (Thomas, J., dissenting).
Under that standard, we may not reverse just because we “would have
decided the [matter] differently.” Anderson v. Bessemer
City , 470 U. S. 564, 573 (1985) . A finding that is
“plausible” in light of the full record—even if another is equally
or more so—must govern. Id., at 574.

															B

															This case concerns North Carolina’s most
recent redrawing of two congressional districts, both of which have
long included substantial populations of black voters. In its
current incarnation, District 1 is anchored in the northeastern
part of the State, with appendages stretching both south and west
(the latter into Durham). District 12 begins in the south-central
part of the State (where it takes in a large part of Charlotte) and
then travels northeast, zig-zagging much of the way to the State’s
northern border. (Maps showing the districts are included in an
appendix to this opinion.) Both have quite the history before this
Court.

															We first encountered the two districts, in their
1992 versions, in Shaw v. Reno , 509 U. S. 630
(1993) . There, we held that voters stated an equal protection
claim by alleging that Districts 1 and 12 were unwarranted racial
gerrymanders. See id. , at 642, 649. After a remand to the
District Court, the case arrived back at our door. See Shaw
II , 517 U. S. 899 . That time, we dismissed the challenge
to District 1 for lack of standing, but struck down District 12.
The design of that “serpentine” district, we held, was nothing if
not race-centric, and could not be justified as a reasonable
attempt to comply with the VRA. Id., at 906; see id., at 911–918.

															The next year, the State responded with a new
districting plan, including a new District 12—and residents of that
district brought another lawsuit alleging an impermissible racial
gerrymander. A District Court sustained the claim twice, but both
times this Court reversed. See Hunt v. Cromartie , 526
U. S. 541 (1999) ( Cromartie I ); Cromartie II ,
532 U. S. 234 . Racial considerations, we held, did not predominate
in designing the revised District 12. Rather, that district was the
result of a political gerrymander—an effort to engineer,
mostly “without regard to race,” a safe Democratic seat. Id. , at 245.

															The State redrew its congressional districts
again in 2001, to account for population changes revealed in the
prior year’s census. Under the 2001 map, which went unchallenged in
court, neither District 1 nor District 12 had a black voting-age
population (called a “BVAP”) that was a majority of the whole: The
former had a BVAP of around 48%, the latter a BVAP of around 43%.
See App. 312, 503. Nonetheless, in five successive general
elections conducted in those reconfigured districts, all the
candidates preferred by most African-American voters won their
contests—and by some handy margins. In District 1, black voters’
candidates of choice garnered as much as 70% of the total vote, and
never less than 59%. See 5 Record 636, 638, 641, 645, 647 (Pls.
Exh. 112). And in District 12, those candidates won with 72% of the
vote at the high end and 64% at the low. See id., at 637,
640, 643, 646, 650.

															Another census, in 2010, necessitated yet
another congressional map—(finally) the one at issue in this case.
State Senator Robert Rucho and State Representative David Lewis,
both Republicans, chaired the two committees jointly responsible
for preparing the revamped plan. They hired Dr. Thomas Hofeller, a
veteran political mapmaker, to assist them in redrawing district
lines. Several hearings, drafts, and revisions later, both chambers
of the State’s General Assembly adopted the scheme the three men
proposed.

															The new map (among other things) significantly
altered both District 1 and District 12. The 2010 census had
revealed District 1 to be substantially underpopulated: To comply
with the Constitution’s one-person-one-vote principle, the State
needed to place almost 100,000 new people within the district’s
boundaries. See App. 2690; Evenwel v. Abbott , 578
U. S. ___, ___ (2016) (slip op., at 3) (explaining that
“[s]tates must draw congressional districts with populations as
close to perfect equality as possible”). Rucho, Lewis, and Hofeller
chose to take most of those people from heavily black areas of
Durham, requiring a finger-like extension of the district’s western
line. See Appendix, infra . With that addition, District 1’s
BVAP rose from 48.6% to 52.7%. See App. 312–313. District 12, for
its part, had no need for significant total-population changes: It
was overpopulated by fewer than 3,000 people out of over 730,000.
See id ., at 1150. Still, Rucho, Lewis, and Hofeller decided
to reconfigure the district, further narrowing its already
snakelike body while adding areas at either end—most relevantly
here, in Guilford County. See Appendix, infra ; App. 1164.
Those changes appreciably shifted the racial composition of
District 12: As the district gained some 35,000 African-Americans
of voting age and lost some 50,000 whites of that age, its BVAP
increased from 43.8% to 50.7%. See 2 Record 349 (Fourth Affidavit
of Dan Frey, Exh. 5); id., at 416 (Exh. 11).

															Registered voters in the two districts (David
Harris and Christine Bowser, here called “the plaintiffs”) brought
this suit against North Carolina officials (collectively, “the
State” or “North Carolina”), complaining of impermissible racial
gerrymanders. After a bench trial, a three-judge District Court
held both districts unconstitutional. All the judges agreed that
racial considerations predominated in the design of District 1. See Harris v. McCrory , 159 F. Supp. 3d 600, 611
(MDNC 2016). And in then applying strict scrutiny, all rejected the
State’s argument that it had a “strong basis” for thinking that the
VRA compelled such a race-based drawing of District 1’s lines. Id., at 623. As for District 12, a majority of the panel
held that “race predominated” over all other factors, including
partisanship. Id. , at 622. And the court explained that the
State had failed to put forward any reason, compelling or
otherwise, for its attention to race in designing that district.
See ibid. Judge Osteen dissented from the conclusion that
race, rather than politics, drove District 12’s lines—yet still
characterized the majority’s view as “[e]minently reasonable.” Id. , at 640.

															The State filed a notice of appeal, and we noted
probable jurisdiction. McCrory v. Harris , 579
U. S. ___ (2016).

															II

															We address at the outset North Carolina’s
contention that a victory it won in a very similar state-court
lawsuit should dictate (or at least influence) our disposition of
this case. As the State explains, the North Carolina NAACP and
several other civil rights groups challenged Districts 1 and 12 in
state court immediately after their enactment, charging that they
were unlawful racial gerrymanders. See Brief for Appellants 19–20.
By the time the plaintiffs before us filed this action, the state
trial court, in Dickson v. Rucho , had rejected those
claims—finding that in District 1 the VRA justified the General
Assembly’s use of race and that in District 12 race was not a
factor at all. See App. 1969. The North Carolina Supreme Court then
affirmed that decision by a 4–3 vote, applying the state-court
equivalent of clear error review. See Dickson v. Rucho , 368 N. C. 481, 500, 781 S. E. 2d 404, 419
(2015), modified on denial of reh’g, 368 N. C. 673, 789
S. E. 2d 436 (2016), cert. pending, No. 16–24. In this Court,
North Carolina makes two related arguments based on the Dickson litigation: first, that the state trial court’s
judgment should have barred this case altogether, under familiar
principles of claim and issue preclusion; and second, that the
state court’s conclusions should cause us to conduct a “searching
review” of the decision below, rather than deferring (as usual) to
its factual findings. Reply Brief 6.

															The State’s preclusion theory rests on an
assertion about how the plaintiffs in the two cases are affiliated.
As the State acknowledges, one person’s lawsuit generally does not
bar another’s, no matter how similar they are in substance. See Taylor v. Sturgell , 553 U. S. 880 –893 (2008) (noting
the “deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone should have his
own day in court”). But when plaintiffs in two cases have a special
relationship, a judgment against one can indeed bind both. See id., at 893–895 (describing six categories of qualifying
relationships). The State contends that Harris and Bowser, the
plaintiffs here, are members of organizations that were plaintiffs
in Dickson . And according to North Carolina, that connection
prevents the pair from raising anew the questions that the state
court previously resolved against those groups. See Brief for
Appellants 20–21.

															But North Carolina never satisfied the District
Court that the alleged affiliation really existed. When the State
argued that its preclusion theory entitled it to summary judgment,
Harris and Bowser responded that they were not members of any of
the organizations that had brought the Dickson suit. See 3
Record 1577–1582 (Defs. Motion for Summary Judgment); 4 Record
101–106 (Pls. Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment). The
parties’ dueling contentions turned on intricate issues about those
groups’ membership policies ( e.g., could Harris’s payment of
dues to the national NAACP, or Bowser’s financial contribution to
the Mecklenburg County NAACP, have made either a member of the
state branch?). Because of those unresolved “factual disputes,” the
District Court denied North Carolina’s motion for summary judgment.
4 Record 238 (July 29, 2014 Order). And nothing in the subsequent
trial supported the State’s assertion about Harris’s and Bowser’s
organizational ties: Indeed, the State chose not to present any
further evidence relating to the membership issue. Based on the
resulting record, the District Court summarily rejected the State’s
claim that Harris and Bowser were something other than independent
plaintiffs. See 159 F. Supp. 3d, at 609.

															That conclusion defeats North Carolina’s attempt
to argue for claim or issue preclusion here. We have no basis for
assessing the factual assertions underlying the State’s argument
any differently than the District Court did. Nothing in the State’s
evidence clearly rebuts Harris’s and Bowser’s testimony that they
never joined any of the Dickson groups. We need not decide
whether the alleged memberships would have supported preclusion if
they had been proved. It is enough that the District Court
reason-ably thought they had not.

															The State’s back-up argument about our standard
of review also falls short. The rule that we review a trial court’s
factual findings for clear error contains no exception for findings
that diverge from those made in another court. See Fed. Rule Civ.
Proc. 52(a)(6) (“Findings of fact . . . must not be set
aside unless clearly erroneous”); see also Hernandez v. New York , 500 U. S. 352, 369 (1991) (plurality opinion)
(applying the same standard to a state court’s findings). Whatever
findings are under review receive the benefit of deference, without
regard to whether a court in a separate suit has seen the matter
differently. So here, we must ask not which court considering
Districts 1 and 12 had the better view of the facts, but simply
whether the court below’s view is clearly wrong. That does not mean
the state court’s decision is wholly irrelevant: It is common sense
that, all else equal, a finding is more likely to be plainly wrong
if some judges disagree with it. Cf. Glossip v. Gross , 576 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 17)
(noting that we are even less likely to disturb a factual
determination when “multiple trial courts have reached the same
finding”). But the very premise of clear error review is that there
are often “two permissible”—because two “plausible”—“views of the
evidence.” Anderson , 470 U. S., at 574; see supra, at 4. Even assuming the state court’s findings
capture one such view, the District Court’s assessment may yet
represent another. And the permissibility of the District Court’s
account is the only question before us.

															III

															With that out of the way, we turn to the
merits of this case, beginning (appropriately enough) with District
1. As noted above, the court below found that race furnished the
predominant rationale for that district’s redesign. See supra, at 6–7. And it held that the State’s interest in
complying with the VRA could not justify that consideration of
race. See supra, at 7 . We uphold both
conclusions.

															A

															Uncontested evidence in the record shows that
the State’s mapmakers, in considering District 1, purposefully
established a racial target: African-Americans should make up no
less than a majority of the voting-age population. See 159 F. Supp.
3d, at 611–614. Senator Rucho and Representative Lewis were not coy
in expressing that goal. They repeatedly told their colleagues that
District 1 had to be majority-minority, so as to comply with the
VRA. During a Senate debate, for example, Rucho explained that
District 1 “must include a sufficient number of African-Americans”
to make it “a majority black district.” App. 689–690. Similarly,
Lewis informed the House and Senate redistricting committees that
the district must have “a majority black voting age population.” Id ., at 610. And that objective was communicated in no
uncertain terms to the legislators’ consultant. Dr. Hofeller
testified multiple times at trial that Rucho and Lewis instructed
him “to draw [District 1] with a [BVAP] in excess of 50 percent.”
159 F. Supp. 3d, at 613; see, e.g. , ibid. (“Once
again, my instructions [were] that the district had to be drawn at
above 50 percent”).

															Hofeller followed those directions to the
letter, such that the 50%-plus racial target “had a direct and
significant impact” on District 1’s configuration. Alabama ,
575 U. S., at __ (slip op., at 17). In particular, Hofeller
moved the district’s borders to encompass the heavily black parts
of Durham (and only those parts), thus taking in tens of thousands
of additional African-American voters. That change and similar
ones, made (in his words) to ensure that the district’s racial
composition would “add[ ] up correctly,” deviated from the
districting practices he other-wise would have followed. App. 2802.
Hofeller candidly admitted that point: For example, he testified,
he sometimes could not respect county or precinct lines as he
wished because “the more important thing” was to create a
majority-minority district. Id ., at 2807; see id ., at
2809. The result is a district with stark racial borders: Within
the same counties, the portions that fall inside District 1 have
black populations two to three times larger than the portions
placed in neighboring districts. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 19; cf. Alabama , 575 U. S., at
___–___ (slip op., at 17–18) (relying on similar evidence to find
racial predominance).

															Faced with this body of evidence—showing an
announced racial target that subordinated other districting
criteria and produced boundaries amplifying divisions between
blacks and whites—the District Court did not clearly err in finding
that race predominated in drawing District 1. Indeed, as all three
judges recognized, the court could hardly have concluded anything
but. See 159 F. Supp. 3d, at 611 (calling District 1 a
“textbook example” of race-based districting).[ 3 ]

															B

															The more substantial question is whether
District 1 can survive the strict scrutiny applied to racial
gerrymanders. As noted earlier, we have long assumed that complying
with the VRA is a compelling interest. See supra, at 2. And
we have held that race-based districting is narrowly tailored to
that objective if a State had “good reasons” for thinking that the
Act demanded such steps. See supra, at 3. North Carolina
argues that District 1 passes muster under that standard: The
General Assembly (so says the State) had “good reasons to believe
it needed to draw [District 1] as a majority-minority district to
avoid Section 2 liability” for vote dilution. Brief for Appellants
52. We now turn to that defense.

															This Court identified, in Thornburg v. Gingles , three threshold conditions for proving vote
dilution under §2 of the VRA. See 478 U. S., at 50–51. First,
a “minority group” must be “sufficiently large and geographically
compact to constitute a majority” in some reasonably configured
legislative district. Id., at 50. Second, the minority group
must be “politically cohesive.” Id., at 51. And third, a
district’s white majority must “vote[ ] sufficiently as a
bloc” to usually “defeat the minority’s preferred candidate.” Ibid . Those three showings, we have explained, are needed to
establish that “the minority [group] has the potential to elect a
representative of its own choice” in a possible district, but that
racially polarized voting prevents it from doing so in the district
as actually drawn because it is “submerg[ed] in a larger white
voting population.” Growe v. Emison , 507 U. S.
25, 40 (1993) . If a State has good reason to think that all the
“ Gingles preconditions” are met, then so too it has good
reason to believe that §2 requires drawing a majority-minority
district. See Bush v. Vera , 517 U. S. 952, 978
(1996) (plurality opinion). But if not, then not.

															Here, electoral history provided no evidence
that a §2 plaintiff could demonstrate the third Gingles prerequisite—effective white bloc-voting.[ 4 ] For most of the twenty years prior to the new plan’s
adoption, African-Americans had made up less than a majority of
District 1’s voters; the district’s BVAP usually hovered between
46% and 48%. See 159 F. Supp. 3d, at 606; App. 312. Yet
throughout those two decades, as the District Court noted, District
1 was “an extraordinarily safe district for African-American
preferred candidates.” 159 F. Supp. 3d , at 626. In the closest election during that period, African-Americans’
candidate of choice received 59% of the total vote; in other years,
the share of the vote garnered by those candidates rose to as much
as 70%. See supra, at 5. Those victories (indeed,
landslides) occurred because the district’s white population did not “vote[ ] sufficiently as a bloc” to thwart black
voters’ preference, Gingles , 478 U. S., at 51; rather,
a meaningful number of white voters joined a politically cohesive
black community to elect that group’s favored candidate. In the
lingo of voting law, District 1 functioned, election year in and
election year out, as a “cross-over” district, in which members of
the majority help a “large enough” minority to elect its candidate
of choice. Bartlett v. Strickland , 556 U. S. 1, 13
(2009) (plurality opinion). When voters act in that way, “[i]t is
difficult to see how the majority-bloc-voting requirement could be
met”—and hence how §2 liability could be established. Id., at 16. So experience gave the State no reason to think that the VRA
required it to ramp up District 1’s BVAP.

															The State counters that, in this context, past
performance is no guarantee of future results. See Brief for
Appellants 57–58; Reply Brief 19–20. Recall here that the State had
to redraw its whole congressional map following the 2010 census.
See supra, at 5. And in particular, the State had to add
nearly 100,000 new people to District 1 to meet the
one-person-one-vote standard. See supra , at 6 . That
meant about 13% of the voters in the new district would never have
voted there before. See App. 2690; Reply Brief 20. So, North
Carolina contends, the question facing the state mapmakers was not
whether the then-existing District 1 violated §2. Rather,
the question was whether the future District 1 would do so
if drawn without regard to race. And that issue, the State claims,
could not be resolved by “focusing myopically on past elections.” Id. , at 19.

															But that reasoning, taken alone, cannot justify
North Carolina’s race-based redesign of District 1. True enough, a
legislature undertaking a redistricting must assess whether the new
districts it contemplates (not the old ones it sheds) conform to
the VRA’s requirements. And true too, an inescapable influx of
additional voters into a district may suggest the possibility that
its former track record of compliance can continue only if the
legislature intentionally adjusts its racial composition. Still,
North Carolina too far downplays the significance of a longtime
pattern of white crossover voting in the area that would form the
core of the redrawn District 1. See Gingles , 478 U. S.,
at 57 (noting that longtime voting patterns are highly probative of
racial polarization). And even more important, North Carolina can
point to no meaningful legislative inquiry into what it now rightly
identifies as the key issue: whether a new, enlarged District 1,
created without a focus on race but however else the State would
choose, could lead to §2 liability. The prospect of a significant
population increase in a district only raises—it does not
answer—the question whether §2 requires deliberate measures to
augment the district’s BVAP. (Indeed, such population growth could
cut in either direction, depending on who comes into the district.)
To have a strong basis in evidence to conclude that §2 demands such
race-based steps, the State must carefully evaluate whether a
plaintiff could establish the Gingles preconditions—including effective white bloc-voting—in a new
district created without those measures. We see nothing in the
legislative record that fits that description.[ 5 ]

															And that absence is no accident: Rucho and Lewis
proceeded under a wholly different theory—arising not from Gingles but from Bartlett v. Strickland —of
what §2 demanded in drawing District 1. Strickland involved
a geographic area in which African-Americans could not form a
majority of a reasonably compact district. See 556 U. S., at 8
(plurality opinion). The African-American community, however, was
sizable enough to enable the formation of a crossover district, in
which a substantial bloc of black voters, if receiving help from
some white ones, could elect the candidates of their choice. See supra, at 14. A plurality of this Court, invoking the first Gingles precondition, held that §2 did not require creating
that district: When a minority group is not sufficiently large to
make up a majority in a reasonably shaped district, §2 simply does
not apply. See 556 U. S., at 18–20. Over and over in the
legislative record, Rucho and Lewis cited Strickland as
mandating a 50%-plus BVAP in District 1. See App. 355–356, 363–364,
472–474, 609–610, 619, 1044. They apparently reasoned that if, as Strickland held, §2 does not require crossover
districts (for groups insufficiently large under Gingles ),
then §2 also cannot be satisfied by crossover districts (for
groups in fact meeting Gingles ’ size condition). In effect,
they concluded, whenever a legislature can draw a
majority-minority district, it must do so—even if a
crossover district would also allow the minority group to elect its
favored candidates. See 1 Tr. 21–22 (counsel’s explanation that
“the [S]tate interpreted” Strickland to say that, in order
to protect African-Americans’ electoral strength and thus avoid §2
liability, the BVAP in District 1 “need[ed] to be above 50
percent”).

															That idea, though, is at war with our §2
jurisprudence— Strickland included. Under the State’s view,
the third Gingles condition is no condition at all, because
even in the absence of effective white bloc-voting, a §2 claim
could succeed in a district (like the old District 1) with an
under-50% BVAP. But this Court has made clear that unless each of the three Gingles prerequisites is
established, “there neither has been a wrong nor can be a remedy.” Growe , 507 U. S., at 41. And Strickland , far
from supporting North Carolina’s view, underscored the necessity of
demonstrating effective white bloc-voting to prevail in a §2
vote-dilution suit. The plurality explained that “[i]n areas with
substantial crossover voting,” §2 plaintiffs would not “be able to
establish the third Gingles precondition” and so
“majority-minority districts would not be required.” 556
U. S., at 24; see also ibid. (noting that States can
“defend against alleged §2 violations by pointing to crossover
voting patterns and to effective crossover districts”). Thus, North
Carolina’s belief that it was compelled to redraw District 1 (a
successful crossover district) as a majority-minority district
rested not on a “strong basis in evidence,” but instead on a pure
error of law. Alabama , 575 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at
22).

															In sum: Although States enjoy leeway to take
race-based actions reasonably judged necessary under a proper
interpretation of the VRA, that latitude cannot rescue District 1.
We by no means “insist that a state legislature, when
redistricting, determine precisely what percent minority
population [§2 of the VRA] demands.” Ibid . But neither will
we approve a racial gerrymander whose necessity is supported by no
evidence and whose raison d’être is a legal mistake.
Accordingly, we uphold the District Court’s conclusion that North
Carolina’s use of race as the predominant factor in designing
District 1 does not withstand strict scrutiny.

															IV

															We now look west to District 12, making its
fifth(!) appearance before this Court. This time, the district’s
legality turns, and turns solely, on which of two possible reasons
predominantly explains its most recent reconfiguration. The
plaintiffs contended at trial that the General Assembly chose
voters for District 12, as for District 1, because of their race;
more particularly, they urged that the Assembly intentionally
increased District 12’s BVAP in the name of ensuring preclearance
under the VRA’s §5. But North Carolina declined to mount any
defense (similar to the one we have just considered for District 1)
that §5’s requirements in fact justified race-based changes to
District 12—perhaps because §5 could not reasonably be understood
to have done so, see n. 10, infra . Instead, the State
altogether denied that racial considerations accounted for (or,
indeed, played the slightest role in) District 12’s redesign.
According to the State’s version of events, Senator Rucho,
Representative Lewis, and Dr. Hofeller moved voters in and out of
the district as part of a “strictly” political gerrymander, without
regard to race. 6 Record 1011. The mapmakers drew their lines, in
other words, to “pack” District 12 with Democrats, not
African-Americans. After hearing evidence supporting both parties’
accounts, the District Court accepted the plaintiffs’.[ 6 ]

															Getting to the bottom of a dispute like this one
poses special challenges for a trial court. In the more usual case
alleging a racial gerrymander—where no one has raised a
partisanship defense—the court can make real headway by exploring
the challenged district’s conformity to traditional districting
principles, such as compactness and respect for county lines. In Shaw II , for example, this Court emphasized the “highly
irregular” shape of then-District 12 in concluding that race
predominated in its design. 517 U. S., at 905 (internal
quotation marks omitted). But such evidence loses much of its value
when the State asserts partisanship as a defense, because a bizarre
shape—as of the new District 12—can arise from a “political
motivation” as well as a racial one. Cromartie I , 526
U. S., at 547, n. 3. And crucially, political and racial
reasons are capable of yielding similar oddities in a district’s
boundaries. That is because, of course, “racial identification is
highly correlated with political affiliation.” Cromartie II ,
532 U. S., at 243. As a result of those redistricting
realities, a trial court has a formidable task: It must make “a
sensitive inquiry” into all “circumstantial and direct evidence of
intent” to assess whether the plaintiffs have managed to
disentangle race from politics and prove that the former drove a
district’s lines. Cromartie I , 526 U. S., at 546
(internal quotation marks omitted).[ 7 ]

															Our job is different—and generally easier. As
described earlier, we review a district court’s finding as to
racial predominance only for clear error, except when the court
made a legal mistake. See supra, at 3–4. Under that standard
of review, we affirm the court’s finding so long as it is
“plausible”; we reverse only when “left with the definite and firm
conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Anderson, 470
U. S., at 573–574; see supra, at 4. And in deciding
which side of that line to come down on, we give singular deference
to a trial court’s judgments about the credibility of witnesses.
See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 52(a)(6). That is proper, we have
explained, because the various cues that “bear so heavily on the
listener’s understanding of and belief in what is said” are lost on
an appellate court later sifting through a paper record. Anderson , 470 U. S., at 575.[ 8 ]

															In light of those principles, we uphold the
District Court’s finding of racial predominance respecting District
12. The evidence offered at trial, including live witness testimony
subject to credibility determinations, adequately supports the
conclusion that race, not politics, accounted for the district’s
reconfiguration. And no error of law infected that judgment:
Contrary to North Carolina’s view, the District Court had no call
to dismiss this challenge just because the plaintiffs did not
proffer an alternative design for District 12 as circumstantial
evidence of the legislature’s intent.

															A

															Begin with some facts and figures, showing how
the redistricting of District 12 affected its racial composition.
As explained above, District 12 (unlike District 1) was
approximately the right size as it was: North Carolina did
not—indeed, could not—much change its total population. See supra, at 6. But by further slimming the district and adding
a couple of knobs to its snakelike body (including in Guilford
County), the General Assembly incorporated tens of thousands of new
voters and pushed out tens of thousands of old ones. And those
changes followed racial lines: To be specific, the new District 12
had 35,000 more African-Americans of voting age and 50,000 fewer
whites of that age. (The difference was made up of voters from
other racial categories.) See ibid . Those voter exchanges
produced a sizable jump in the district’s BVAP, from 43.8% to
50.7%. See ibid. The Assembly thus turned District 12 (as it
did District 1, see supra, at 10–11) into a
majority-minority district.

															As the plaintiffs pointed out at trial, Rucho
and Lewis had publicly stated that racial considerations lay behind
District 12’s augmented BVAP. In a release issued along with their
draft districting plan, the two legislators ascribed that change to
the need to achieve preclearance of the plan under §5 of the VRA.
See App. 358. At that time, §5 covered Guilford County and thus
prohibited any “retrogression in the [electoral] position of racial
minorities” there. Beer , 425 U. S., at 141; see 31 Fed.
Reg. 5081 (1966). And part of Guilford County lay within District
12, which meant that the Department of Justice would closely
scrutinize that district’s new lines. In light of those facts,
Rucho and Lewis wrote: “Because of the presence of Guilford County
in the Twelfth District, we have drawn our proposed Twelfth
District at a [BVAP] level that is above the percentage of [BVAP]
found in the current Twelfth District.” App. 358. According to the
two legislators, that race-based “measure w[ould] ensure
preclearance of the plan.” Ibid. Thus, the District Court
found, Rucho’s and Lewis’s own account “evince[d] intentionality”
as to District 12’s racial composition: Because of the VRA,
they increased the number of African-Americans. 159 F. Supp.
3d, at 617.

															Hofeller confirmed that intent in both
deposition testimony and an expert report. Before the
redistricting, Hofeller testified, some black residents of Guilford
County fell within District 12 while others fell within neighboring
District 13. The legislators, he continued, “decided to reunite the
black community in Guilford County into the Twelfth.” App. 558; see id., at 530–531. Why? Hofeller responded, in language the
District Court emphasized: “[I]n order to be cautious and draw a
plan that would pass muster under the Voting Rights Act.” Id., at 558; see 159 F. Supp. 3d, at 619. Likewise,
Hofeller’s expert report highlighted the role of the VRA in
altering District 12’s lines. “[M]indful that Guilford County was
covered” by §5, Hofeller explained, the legislature “determined
that it was prudent to reunify [the county’s] African-American
community” into District 12. App. 1103. That change caused the
district’s compactness to decrease (in expert-speak, it “lowered
the Reock Score”), but that was a sacrifice well worth making: It
would “avoid the possibility of a [VRA] charge” that would
“inhibit[ ] preclearance.” Ibid. The State’s preclearance submission to the
Justice Department indicated a similar determination to concentrate
black voters in District 12. “One of the concerns of the
Redistricting Chairs,” North Carolina there noted, had to do with
the Justice Department’s years-old objection to “a failure by the
State to create a second majority minority district” (that is, in
addition to District 1). Id ., at 478. The submission then
went on to explain that after considering alternatives, the
redistricters had designed a version of District 12 that would
raise its BVAP to 50.7%. Thus, concluded the State, the new
District 12 “increases[ ] the African-American community’s
ability to elect their candidate of choice.” Id ., at 479. In
the District Court’s view, that passage once again indicated that
making District 12 majority-minority was no “mere coincidence,” but
a deliberate attempt to avoid perceived obstacles to preclearance.
159 F. Supp. 3d, at 617.[ 9 ]

															And still there was more: Perhaps the most
dramatic testimony in the trial came when Congressman Mel Watt (who
had represented District 12 for some 20 years) recounted a
conversation he had with Rucho in 2011 about the district’s future
make-up. According to Watt, Rucho said that “his leadership had
told him that he had to ramp the minority percentage in [District
12] up to over 50 percent to comply with the Voting Rights Law.”
App. 2369; see id ., at 2393. And further, that it would then
be Rucho’s “job to go and convince the African-American community”
that such a racial target “made sense” under the Act. Ibid. ;
see id ., at 2369.[ 10 ]
The District Court cred-ited Watt’s testimony about the
conversation, citing his courtroom demeanor and “consistent
recollection” under “probing cross-examination.” 159 F. Supp.
3d, at 617–618.[ 11 ] In the
court’s view, Watt’s account was of a piece with all the other
evidence—including the redistricters’ on-the-nose attainment of a
50% BVAP—indicating that the General Assembly, in the name of VRA
compliance, deliberately redrew District 12 as a majority-minority
district. See id., at 618.[ 12 ]

															The State’s contrary story—that politics alone
drove decisionmaking—came into the trial mostly through Hofeller’s
testimony. Hofeller explained that Rucho and Lewis instructed him,
first and foremost, to make the map as a whole “more favorable to
Republican candidates.” App. 2682. One agreed-on stratagem in that
effort was to pack the historically Democratic District 12 with
even more Democratic voters, thus leaving surrounding districts
more reliably Republican. See id ., at 2682–2683, 2696–2697.
To that end, Hofeller recounted, he drew District 12’s new
boundaries based on political data—specifically, the voting
behavior of precincts in the 2008 Presidential election between
Barack Obama and John McCain. See id ., at 2701–2702. Indeed,
he claimed, he displayed only this data, and no racial data, on his
computer screen while mapping the district. See id ., at
2721. In part of his testimony, Hofeller further stated that the
Obama-McCain election data explained (among other things) his
incorporation of the black, but not the white, parts of Guilford
County then located in District 13. See id ., at 2824. Only after he drew a politics-based line between those adjacent
areas, Hofeller testified, did he “check[ ]” the racial data
and “f[ind] out” that the resulting configuration of District 12
“did not have a [§5] issue.” Id ., at 2822.

															The District Court, however, disbelieved
Hofeller’s asserted indifference to the new district’s racial
composition. The court recalled Hofeller’s contrary deposition
testimony—his statement (repeated in only slightly different words
in his expert report) that Rucho and Lewis “decided” to shift
African-American voters into District 12 “in order to” ensure
preclearance under §5. See 159 F. Supp. 3d, at 619–620; App.
558. And the court explained that even at trial, Hofeller had given
testimony that undermined his “blame it on politics” claim. Right
after asserting that Rucho and Lewis had told him “[not] to use
race” in designing District 12, Hofeller added a qualification:
“except perhaps with regard to Guilford County.” Id ., at
2791; see id ., at 2790. As the District Court understood,
that is the kind of “exception” that goes pretty far toward
swallowing the rule. District 12 saw a net increase of more than
25,000 black voters in Guilford County, relative to a net gain of
fewer than 35,000 across the district: So the newly added parts of
that county played a major role in pushing the district’s BVAP over
50%. See id ., at 384, 500–502.[ 13 ] The District Court came away from Hofeller’s
self-contradictory testimony unpersuaded that this decisive influx
of black voters was an accident. Whether the racial make-up of the
county was displayed on his computer screen or just fixed in his
head, the court thought, Hofeller’s denial of race-based
districting “r[ang] hollow.” 159 F. Supp. 3d, at 620,
n. 8.

															Finally, an expert report by Dr. Stephen
Ansolabehere lent circumstantial support to the plaintiffs’
race-not-politics case. Ansolabehere looked at the six counties
overlapping with District 12—essentially the region from which the
mapmakers could have drawn the district’s population. The question
he asked was: Who from those counties actually ended up in District
12? The answer he found was: Only 16% of the region’s white
registered voters, but 64% of the black ones. See App. 321–322.
Ansolabehere next controlled for party registration, but discovered
that doing so made essentially no difference: For example, only 18%
of the region’s white Democrats wound up in District 12, whereas
65% of the black Democrats did. See id. , at 332. The upshot
was that, regardless of party, a black voter was three to four
times more likely than a white voter to cast his ballot within
District 12’s borders. See ibid. Those stark disparities led
Ansolabehere to conclude that “race, and not party,” was “the
dominant factor” in District 12’s design. Id ., at
337.[ 14 ] His report, as the
District Court held, thus tended to confirm the plaintiffs’ direct
evidence of racial predominance. See 159 F. Supp. 3d, at
620–621.

															The District Court’s assessment that all this
evidence proved racial predominance clears the bar of clear error
review. The court emphasized that the districting plan’s own
architects had repeatedly described the influx of African-Americans
into District 12 as a §5 compliance measure, not a side-effect of
political gerrymandering. And those contemporaneous descriptions
comported with the court’s credibility determinations about the
trial testimony—that Watt told the truth when he recounted Rucho’s
resolve to hit a majority-BVAP target; and conversely that Hofeller
skirted the truth (especially as to Guilford County) when he
claimed to have followed only race-blind criteria in drawing
district lines. We cannot disrespect such credibility judgments.
See Anderson , 470 U. S., at 575 (A choice to believe
“one of two or more witnesses, each of whom has told a coherent and
facially plausible story that is not contradicted by extrinsic
evidence,” can “virtually never be clear error”) . And more
generally, we will not take it upon ourselves to weigh the trial
evidence as if we were the first to hear it. See id., at 573
(A “reviewing court oversteps” under Rule 52(a) “if it undertakes
to duplicate the role of the lower court”). No doubt other
interpretations of that evidence were permissible. Maybe we would
have evaluated the testimony differently had we presided over the
trial; or then again, maybe we would not have. Either way—and it is
only this which matters—we are far from having a “definite
and firm conviction” that the District Court made a mistake in
concluding from the record before it that racial considerations
predominated in District 12’s design . B

															The State mounts a final, legal rather than
factual, attack on the District Court’s finding of racial
predominance. When race and politics are competing explanations of
a district’s lines, argues North Carolina, the party challenging
the district must introduce a particular kind of circumstantial
evidence: “an alternative [map] that achieves the legislature’s
political objectives while improving racial balance.” Brief for
Appellants 31 (emphasis deleted). That is true, the State says,
irrespective of what other evidence is in the case—so even if the
plaintiff offers powerful direct proof that the legislature adopted
the map it did for racial reasons. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 8. Because
the plaintiffs here (as all agree) did not present such a
counter-map, North Carolina concludes that they cannot prevail. The
dissent echoes that argument. See post , at 6–11.

															We have no doubt that an alternative districting
plan, of the kind North Carolina describes, can serve as key
evidence in a race-versus-politics dispute. One, often highly
persuasive way to disprove a State’s contention that politics drove
a district’s lines is to show that the legislature had the capacity
to accomplish all its partisan goals without moving so many members
of a minority group into the district. If you were really sorting by political behavior instead of skin color (so the
argument goes) you would have done—or, at least, could just as well
have done— this . Such would-have, could-have, and (to round
out the set) should-have arguments are a familiar means of
undermining a claim that an action was based on a permissible,
rather than a prohibited, ground. See, e.g. , Miller-El v. Dretke , 545 U. S. 231, 249 (2005)
(“If that were the [real] explanation for striking [juror]
Warren[,] the prosecutors should have struck [juror] Jenkins”
too).

															But they are hardly the only means.
Suppose that the plaintiff in a dispute like this one introduced
scores of leaked emails from state officials instructing their
mapmaker to pack as many black voters as possible into a district,
or telling him to make sure its BVAP hit 75%. Based on such
evidence, a court could find that racial rather than political
factors predominated in a district’s design, with or without an
alternative map. And so too in cases lacking that kind of smoking
gun, as long as the evidence offered satisfies the plaintiff’s
burden of proof. In Bush v. Vera , for example, this
Court upheld a finding of racial predominance based on “substantial
direct evidence of the legislature’s racial motivations”—including
credible testimony from political figures and statements made in a
§5 preclearance submission—plus circumstantial evidence that
redistricters had access to racial, but not political, data at the
“block-by-block level” needed to explain their “intricate” designs.
See 517 U. S., at 960–963 (plurality opinion). Not a single
Member of the Court thought that the absence of a counter-map made
any difference. Similarly, it does not matter in this case, where
the plaintiffs’ introduction of mostly direct and some
circumstantial evidence—documents issued in the redistricting
process, testimony of government officials, expert analysis of
demographic patterns—gave the District Court a sufficient basis,
sans any map, to resolve the race-or-politics question.

															A plaintiff’s task, in other words, is simply to
persuade the trial court—without any special evidentiary
prerequisite—that race (not politics) was the “predominant
consideration in deciding to place a significant number of voters
within or without a particular district.” Alabama , 575
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4) (internal quotation marks
omitted); cf. Bethune-Hill , 580 U. S., at ___, ___
(slip op., at 8, 10) (rejecting a similar effort to elevate one
form of “persuasive circumstantial evidence” in a dispute
respecting racial predominance to a “mandatory precondition” or
“threshold requirement” of proof). That burden of proof, we have
often held, is “demanding.” E.g., Cromartie II , 532
U. S., at 241. And because that is so, a plaintiff will
sometimes need an alternative map, as a practical matter, to make
his case. But in no area of our equal protection law have we forced
plaintiffs to submit one particular form of proof to prevail. See Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development
Corp. , 429 U. S. 252 –268 (1977) (offering a varied and
non-exhaustive list of “subjects of proper inquiry in determining
whether racially discriminatory intent existed”). Nor would it make
sense to do so here. The Equal Protection Clause prohibits the
unjustified drawing of district lines based on race. An alternative
map is merely an evidentiary tool to show that such a substantive
violation has occurred; neither its presence nor its absence can
itself resolve a racial gerrymandering claim.[ 15 ]

															North Carolina insists, however, that we have
already said to the contrary—more particularly, that our decision
in Cromartie II imposed a non-negotiable “alternative-map
requirement.” Brief for Appellants 31. As the State observes, Cromartie II reversed as clearly erroneous a trial court’s
finding that race, rather than politics, predominated in the
assignment of voters to an earlier incarnation of District 12. See
532 U. S., at 241; supra, at 5. And as the State
emphasizes, a part of our opinion faulted the Cromartie plaintiffs for failing to offer a convincing account of how the
legislature could have accomplished its political goals other than
through the map it chose. See 532 U. S., at 257–258. We there
stated:

															“In a case such as this one where
majority-minority districts . . . are at issue and where
racial identification correlates highly with political affiliation,
the party attacking the legislatively drawn boundaries must show at
the least that the legislature could have achieved its legitimate
political objectives in alternative ways that are comparably
consistent with traditional districting principles. That party must
also show that those districting alternatives would have brought
about significantly greater racial balance.” Id. , at
258.

															According to North Carolina, that passage alone
settles this case, because it makes an alternative map “essential”
to a finding that District 12 (a majority-minority district in
which race and partisanship are correlated) was a racial
gerrymander. Reply Brief 11. Once again, the dissent says the same.
See post , at 7.

															But the reasoning of Cromartie II belies
that reading. The Court’s opinion nowhere attempts to explicate or
justify the categorical rule that the State claims to find there.
(Certainly the dissent’s current defense of that rule, see post , at 8–11, was nowhere in evidence.) And given the
strangeness of that rule—which would treat a mere form of evidence
as the very substance of a constitutional claim, see supra, at 29–31—we cannot think that the Court adopted it without any
explanation. Still more, the entire thrust of the Cromartie
II opinion runs counter to an inflexible counter-map
requirement. If the Court had adopted that rule, it would have had
no need to weigh each piece of evidence in the case and determine
whether, taken together, they were “adequate” to show “the
predominance of race in the legislature’s line-drawing process.”
532 U. S., at 243–244. But that is exactly what Cromartie II did, over a span of 20 pages and in exhaustive detail. Item by
item, the Court discussed and dismantled the supposed proof, both
direct and circumstantial, of race-based redistricting. All that
careful analysis would have been superfluous—that dogged effort
wasted—if the Court viewed the absence or inadequacy of a single
form of evidence as necessarily dooming a gerrymandering claim.

															Rightly understood, the passage from Cromartie II had a different and narrower point, arising
from and reflecting the evidence offered in that case. The direct
evidence of a racial gerrymander, we thought, was extremely weak:
We said of one piece that it “says little or nothing about whether
race played a predominant role” in drawing district lines; we said
of another that it “is less persuasive than the kinds of direct
evidence we have found significant in other redistricting cases.” Id. , at 253–254 (emphasis deleted). Nor did the report of
the plaintiffs’ expert impress us overmuch: In our view, it
“offer[ed] little insight into the legislature’s true motive.” Id. , at 248. That left a set of arguments of the
would-have-could-have variety. For example, the plaintiffs offered
several maps purporting to “show how the legislature might have
swapped” some mostly black and mostly white precincts to obtain
greater racial balance “without harming [the legislature’s]
political objective.” Id. , at 255 (internal quotation marks
omitted). But the Court determined that none of those proposed
exchanges would have worked as advertised—essentially, that the
plaintiffs’ “you could have redistricted differently” arguments
failed on their own terms. See id. , at 254–257. Hence
emerged the demand quoted above, for maps that would actually show what the plaintiffs’ had not. In a case like Cromartie II —that is, one in which the plaintiffs had meager
direct evidence of a racial gerrymander and needed to rely on
evidence of forgone alternatives—only maps of that kind could carry
the day. Id. , at 258.

															But this case is most unlike Cromartie
II , even though it involves the same electoral district some
twenty years on. This case turned not on the possibility of
creating more optimally constructed districts, but on direct
evidence of the General Assembly’s intent in creating the actual
District 12, including many hours of trial testimony subject to
credibility determinations. That evidence, the District Court
plausibly found, itself satisfied the plaintiffs’ burden of
debunking North Carolina’s “it was really politics” defense; there
was no need for an alternative map to do the same job. And we pay
our precedents no respect when we extend them far beyond the
circumstances for which they were designed.

															V

															Applying a clear error standard, we uphold the
District Court’s conclusions that racial considerations
predominated in designing both District 1 and District 12. For
District 12, that is all we must do, because North Carolina has
made no attempt to justify race-based districting there. For
District 1, we further uphold the District Court’s decision that §2
of the VRA gave North Carolina no good reason to reshuffle voters
because of their race. We accordingly affirm the judgment of the
District Court.

															It is so ordered.

															Justice Gorsuch took no part in the
consideration or decision of this case.

															Congressional District 1 (Enacted 2011)

															Congressional District 12 (Enacted 2011) Notes 1 A plaintiff succeeds at
this stage even if the evidence reveals that a legislature elevated
race to the predominant criterion in order to advance other goals,
including political ones. See Bush v. Vera , 517
U. S. 952 –970 (1996) (plurality opinion) (holding that race
predominated when a legislature deliberately “spread[ ] the
Black population” among several districts in an effort to
“protect[ ] Democratic incumbents”); Miller v. Johnson , 515 U. S. 900, 914 (1995) (stating that the
“use of race as a proxy” for “political interest[s]” is
“prohibit[ed]”). 2 Challenges to the
constitutionality of congressional districts are heard by
three-judge district courts, with a right of direct appeal to this
Court. See 28 U. S. C. §§2284(a), 1253. 3 The State’s argument to
the contrary rests on a legal proposition that was foreclosed
almost as soon as it was raised in this Court. According to the
State, racial considerations cannot predominate in drawing district
lines unless there is an “actual conflict” between those lines and
“traditional districting principles.” Brief for Appellants 45. But
we rejected that view earlier this Term, holding that when (as
here) race furnished “the overriding reason for choosing one map
over others,” a further showing of “inconsistency between the
enacted plan and traditional redistricting criteria” is unnecessary
to a finding of racial predominance. Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections , 580 U. S. ___, ___
(2017) (slip op., at 10). And in any event, the evidence recounted
in the text indicates that District 1’s boundaries did conflict with traditional districting principles—for example, by
splitting numerous counties and precincts. See supra, at 11.
So we would uphold the District Court’s finding of racial
predominance even under the (incorrect) legal standard the State
proposes. 4 In the District Court,
the parties also presented arguments relating to the first Gingles prerequisite, contesting whether the
African-American community in the region was sufficiently large and
compact to form a majority of a reasonably shaped district. The
court chose not to decide that fact-intensive question. And aside
from the State’s unelaborated assertion that “[t]here is no
question that the first factor was satisfied,” Brief for Appellants
52, the parties have not briefed or argued the issue before us. We
therefore have no occasion to address it. 5 North Carolina calls our
attention to two expert reports on voting patterns throughout the
State, but neither casts light on the relevant issue. The first (by
Dr. Thomas Brunell) showed that some elections in many of the
State’s counties exhibited “statistically significant” racially
polarized voting. App. 1001. The second (by Dr. Ray Block) found
that in various elections across the State, white voters were
“noticeably” less likely than black voters to support black
candidates. Id ., at 959. From those far-flung data
points—themselves based only on past elections—the experts opined
(to no one’s great surprise) that in North Carolina, as in most
States, there are discernible, non-random relationships between
race and voting. But as the District Court found, see Harris v. McCrory , 159 F. Supp. 3d 600, 624 (MDNC 2016), that
generalized conclusion fails to meaningfully (or indeed, at all)
address the relevant local question: whether, in a new version of
District 1 created without a focus on race, black voters would
encounter “sufficient[ ]” white bloc-voting to “cancel [their]
ability to elect representatives of their choice,” Gingles ,
478 U. S., at 56. And so the reports do not answer whether the
legislature needed to boost District 1’s BVAP to avoid potential §2
liability. 6 Justice Alito charges us
with “ignor[ing]” the State’s political-gerrymander defense, making
our analysis “like Hamlet without the prince.” Post , at 20
(opinion concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part)
(hereinafter dissent); see post , at 20, 34. But we simply
take the State’s account for what it is: one side of a thoroughly
two-sided case (and, as we will discuss, the side the District
Court rejected, primarily on factual grounds). By contrast, the
dissent consistently treats the State’s version of events (what it
calls “the Legislature’s political strategy and the relationship
between that strategy and [District 12’s] racial composition,” post , at 20) as if it were a simple “fact of the matter”—the
premise of, rather than a contested claim in, this case. See post , at 12–14, 16, 20, 26, 27–29, 33. The dissent’s
narrative thus tracks, top-to-bottom and point-for-point, the
testimony of Dr. Hofeller, the State’s star witness at trial—so
much so that the dissent could just have block-quoted that portion
of the transcript and saved itself a fair bit of trouble. Compare post , at 12–20, with App. 2671–2755. Imagine (to update the
dissent’s theatrical reference) Inherit the Wind retold
solely from the perspective of William Jennings Bryan, with nary a
thought given to the competing viewpoint of Clarence
Darrow. 7 As earlier noted, that
inquiry is satisfied when legislators have “place[d] a significant
number of voters within or without” a district predominantly
because of their race, regardless of their ultimate objective in
taking that step. See supra, at 2, and n. 1. So, for
example, if legislators use race as their predominant districting
criterion with the end goal of advancing their partisan
interests—perhaps thinking that a proposed district is more
“sellable” as a race-based VRA compliance measure than as a
political gerrymander and will accomplish much the same thing—their
action still triggers strict scrutiny. See Vera , 517
U. S., at 968–970 (plurality opinion). In other words, the
sorting of voters on the grounds of their race remains suspect even
if race is meant to function as a proxy for other (including
political) characteristics. See Miller , 515 U. S., at
914. 8 Undeterred by these
settled principles, the dissent undertakes to refind the facts of
this case at every turn. See post , at 11–33. Indeed, the
dissent repeatedly flips the appropriate standard of
review—arguing, for example, that the District Court’s is not “the
only plausible interpretation” of one piece of contested evidence
and that the State offered an “entirely natural” view of another. Post , at 24, 31; see also post , at 20, 26, 27, 33.
Underlying that approach to the District Court’s factfinding is an
elemental error: The dissent mistakes the rule that a legislature’s
good faith should be presumed “until a claimant makes a showing
sufficient to support th[e] allegation” of “race-based
decisionmaking,” Miller , 515 U. S., at 915, for a kind
of super-charged, pro-State presumption on appeal, trumping
clear-error review. See post , at 11–12,
n. 7. 9 The dissent’s contrary
reading of the preclearance submission—as reporting the
redistricters’ “decis[ion] not to construct District 12 as a
majority-minority district,” post , at 24—is difficult to
fathom. The language the dissent cites explains only why Rucho and
Lewis rejected one particular way of creating such a district; the
submission then relates their alternative (and, of course,
successful) approach to attaining an over-50% BVAP. See App.
478–479. 10 Watt
recalled that he laughed in response because the VRA required no
such target. See id ., at 2369. And he told Rucho that “the
African-American community will laugh at you” too. Ibid. Watt explained to Rucho: “I’m getting 65 percent of the vote in a
40 percent black district. If you ramp my [BVAP] to over 50
percent, I’ll probably get 80 percent of the vote, and[ ]
that’s not what the Voting Rights Act was designed to do.” Ibid. 11 The
court acknowledged that, in the earlier state-court trial involving
District 12, Rucho denied making the comments that Watt recalled.
See 159 F. Supp. 3d, at 617–618. But the court explained that
it could not “assess [the] credibility” of Rucho’s contrary account
because even though he was listed as a defense witness and present
in the courtroom throughout the trial, the State chose not to put
him on the witness stand. Id., at 618. 12 The
dissent conjures a different way of explaining Watt’s testi-mony.
Perhaps, the dissent suggests, Rucho disclosed a majority-minority
target to Watt, but Watt then changed Rucho’s mind —and
perhaps it was just a coincidence (or a mistake?) that Rucho still
created a 50.7%-BVAP district. See post , at 25–26. But
nothing in the record supports that hypothesis. See ibid. (relying exclusively on the State’s preclearance submission to back
up this story); supra, at 23, and n. 9 (correcting the
dissent’s misreading of that submission). And the State, lacking
the dissent’s creativity, did not think to present it at
trial. 13 The
dissent charges that this comparison is misleading, but offers no
good reason why that is so. See post , at 29–30. It is quite
true, as the dissent notes, that another part of District 12 (in
Mecklenburg County) experienced a net increase in black voters even
larger than the one in Guilford County. See post , at 30.
(The net increases in the two counties thus totaled more than
35,000; they were then partially offset by net decreases in other
counties in District 12.) But that is irrelevant to the point made
here: Without the numerous black voters added to District 12 in
Guilford County—where the evidence most clearly indicates voters
were chosen based on race—the district would have fallen well shy
of majority-minority status. 14 Hofeller did not dispute
Ansolabehere’s figures, but questioned his inference. Those
striking patterns, the mapmaker claimed, were nothing more than the
result of his own reliance on voting data from the 2008
Presidential election—because that information ( i.e., who
voted for Obama and who for McCain) tracked race better than it did
party registration. See App. 1101, 1111–1114; cf. Cromartie
II , 532 U. S. 234, 245 (2001) (recognizing that “party
registration and party preference do not always correspond”). As we
have just recounted, however, the District Court had other reasons
to disbelieve Hofeller’s testimony that he used solely that
electoral data to draw District 12’s lines. See supra , at
25–26. And Ansolabehere contended that even if Hofeller did so,
that choice of data could itself suggest an intent to sort voters
by race. Voting results from a “single [Presidential] election with
a Black candidate,” Ansolabehere explained, would be a “problematic
and unusual” indicator of future party preference, because of the
racial dynamics peculiar to such a match-up. App. 341; see id ., at 342–343. That data would, indeed, be much more
useful as a reflection of an area’s racial composition: “The Obama
vote,” Ansolabehere found, is “an extremely strong positive
indicator of the location of Black registered voters” and,
conversely, an “extremely strong negative indicator of the location
of White registered voters.” Id ., at 342; see id ., at
2546–2550. 15 The
dissent responds that an alternative-map requirement “should not be
too hard” for plaintiffs (or at least “sophisticated” litigants
“like those in the present case”) to meet. Post , at 10–11.
But if the plaintiffs have already proved by a preponderance of the
evidence that race predominated in drawing district lines, then we
have no warrant to demand that they jump through additional
evidentiary hoops (whether the exercise would cost a hundred
dollars or a million, a week’s more time or a year’s). Or at least
that would be so if we followed the usual rules. Underlying the
dissent’s view that we should not—that we should instead create a
special evidentiary burden—is its belief that “litigation of this
sort” often seeks to “obtain in court what [a political party]
could not achieve in the political arena,” post , at 9, and
so that little is lost by making suits like this one as hard as
possible. But whatever the possible motivations for bringing such
suits (and the dissent says it is not questioning “what
occurred here,” ibid. ), they serve to prevent legislatures
from taking unconstitutional districting action—which happens more
often than the dissent must suppose. State lawmakers sometimes
misunderstand the VRA’s requirements (as may have occurred here
with respect to §5), leading them to employ race as a predominant
districting criterion when they should not. See supra , at
22–24, and n. 10. Or they may resort to race-based districting
for ultimately political reasons, leveraging the strong correlation
between race and voting behavior to advance their partisan
interests. See nn. 1, 7, supra . Or, finally—though we hope
less commonly—they may simply seek to suppress the electoral power
of minority voters. When plaintiffs meet their burden of showing
that such conduct has occurred, there is no basis for subjecting
them to additional—and unique—evidentiary hurdles, preventing them
from receiving the remedy to which they are entitled. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 15–1262

															_________________

															ROY COOPER, GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA,
et al., APPELLANTS v. DAVID HARRIS, et al.

															on appeal from the united states district
court for the middle district of north carolina

															[May 22, 2017]

															Justice Thomas, concurring.

															I join the opinion of the Court because it
correctly applies our precedents under the Constitution and the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), 52 U. S. C. §10301 et
seq . I write briefly to explain the additional grounds on which
I would affirm the three-judge District Court and to note my
agreement, in particular, with the Court’s clear-error
analysis.

															As to District 1, I think North Carolina’s
concession that it created the district as a majority-black
district is by itself sufficient to trigger strict scrutiny. See
Brief for Appellants 44; see also, e.g. , Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections , 580 U. S. ___,
___–___ (2017) (slip op., at 1–2) (Thomas, J., concurring in
judgment in part and dissenting in part). I also think that North
Carolina cannot satisfy strict scrutiny based on its efforts to
comply with §2 of the VRA. See ante , at 12. In my view, §2
does not apply to redistricting and therefore cannot justify a
racial gerrymander. See Holder v. Hall , 512
U. S. 874 –923 (1994) (Thomas, J., concurring in
judgment).

															As to District 12, I agree with the Court that
the District Court did not clearly err when it determined that race
was North Carolina’s predominant motive in drawing the district.
See ante , at 21. This is the same conclusion I reached when
we last reviewed District 12. Easley v. Cromartie ,
532 U. S. 234, 267 (2001) ( Cromartie II ) (dissenting
opinion). The Court reached the contrary conclusion in Cromartie
II only by misapplying our deferential standard for reviewing
factual findings. See id., at 259–262. Today’s decision does
not repeat Cromartie II ’s error, and indeed it confines that
case to its particular facts. It thus represents a welcome course
correction to this Court’s application of the clear-error
standard. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 15–1262

															_________________

															ROY COOPER, GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA,
et al., APPELLANTS v. DAVID HARRIS, et al.

															on appeal from the united states district
court for the middle district of north carolina

															[May 22, 2017]

															Justice Alito, with whom The Chief Justice and
Justice Kennedy join, concurring in the judgment in part and
dissenting in part.

															A precedent of this Court should not be treated
like a disposable household item—say, a paper plate or napkin—to be
used once and then tossed in the trash. But that is what the Court
does today in its decision regarding North Carolina’s 12th
Congressional District: The Court junks a rule adopted in a prior,
remarkably similar challenge to this very same congressional
district.

															In Easley v. Cromartie , 532
U. S. 234 (2001) ( Cromartie II ), the Court
considered the constitutionality of the version of District 12 that
was adopted in 1997. Id. , at 238. That district had the same
basic shape as the district now before us, and the challengers
argued that the legislature’s predominant reason for adopting this
configuration was race. Ibid. The State responded that its
motive was not race but politics. Id. , at 241. Its
objective, the State insisted, was to create a district in which
the Democratic candidate would win. See ibid. ; Brief for
State Appellants in Easley v. Cromartie, O. T.
2000, Nos. 99–1864, 99–1865 , p. 25. Rejecting that
explanation, a three-judge court found that the legislature’s
predominant motive was racial, specifically to pack
African-Americans into District 12. See Cromartie v. Hunt , 133 F. Supp. 2d 407, 420 (EDNC 2000). But this Court
held that this finding of fact was clearly erroneous. Cromartie
II , 532 U. S., at 256.

															A critical factor in our analysis was the
failure of those challenging the district to come forward with an
alternative redistricting map that served the legislature’s
political objective as well as the challenged version without
producing the same racial effects. Noting that race and party
affiliation in North Carolina were “highly corre-lated,” id., at 243, we laid down this rule:

															“In a case such as this one
. . . , the party attacking the legislatively drawn
boundaries must show at the least that the legislature could have
achieved its legitimate political objectives in alternative ways
that are comparably consistent with traditional districting
principles. That party must also show that those districting
alternatives would have brought about significantly greater racial
balance. Appellees failed to make any such showing here.” Id., at 258.

															Now, District 12 is back before us. After the
2010 census, the North Carolina Legislature, with the Republicans
in the majority, drew the present version of District 12. The
challengers contend that this version violates equal protection
because the predominant motive of the legislature was racial: to
pack the district with African-American voters. The legislature
responds that its objective was political: to pack the district
with Democrats and thus to increase the chances of Republican
candidates in neighboring districts.

															You might think that the Cromartie II rule would be equally applicable in this case, which does not
differ in any relevant particular, but the majority executes a
stunning about-face. Now, the challengers’ failure to produce an
alternative map that meets the Cromartie II test is
inconsequential. It simply “does not matter.” Ante , at
30.

															This is not the treatment of precedent that
state legislatures have the right to expect from this Court. The
failure to produce an alternative map doomed the challengers in Cromartie II, and the same should be true now. Partisan
gerrymandering is always unsavory, but that is not the issue here.
The issue is whether District 12 was drawn predominantly because of
race. The record shows that it was not.[ 1 ]

															I

															Under the Constitution, state legislatures
have “the initial power to draw districts for federal elections.” Vieth v. Jubelirer , 541 U. S. 267, 275 (2004)
(plurality opinion).[ 2 ] This
power, of course, must be exercised in conformity with the
Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. And because the
Equal Protection Clause’s “central mandate is racial neutrality in
governmental decisionmaking,” Miller v. Johnson , 515
U. S. 900, 904 (1995) , “effort[s] to separate voters into
different districts on the basis of race” must satisfy the rigors
of strict scrutiny. Shaw v. Reno , 509 U. S. 630,
649, 653 (1993) ( Shaw I ).

															We have stressed, however, that courts are
obligated to “exercise extraordinary caution in adjudicating claims
that a State has drawn district lines on the basis of race.” Miller , 515 U. S., at 916. “Federal-court review of
districting legislation represents a serious intrusion on the most
vital of local functions,” and “the good faith of a state
legislature must be presumed.” Id. , at 915. A legislature
will “almost always be aware of racial demographics” during
redistricting, but evidence of such awareness does not show that
the legislature violated equal protection. Id. , at 916.
Instead, the Court has held, “[r]ace must not simply have been a motivation for the drawing of a majority-minority
district, but the predominant factor motivating the
legislature’s districting decision.” Cromartie II, 532
U. S., at 241 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted;
emphasis in original).

															This evidentiary burden “is a demanding one.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, although
“[t]he legislature’s motivation is . . . a factual
question,” Hunt v. Cromartie , 526 U. S. 541, 549
(1999) ( Cromartie I ), an appellate court conducting
clear-error review must always keep in mind the heavy evidentiary
obligation borne by those challenging a districting plan. See Cromartie II , supra , at 241, 257. Recognizing “the
intrusive potential of judicial intervention into the legislative
realm,” Miller , supra , at 916, we have warned that
courts must be very cautious about imputing a racial motive to a
State’s redistricting plan.

															II

															That caution “is especially appropriate
. . . where the State has articulated a legitimate
political explanation for its districting decision, and the voting
population is one in which race and political affiliation are
highly correlated.” Cromartie II , 532 U. S., at 242. We
have repeatedly acknowledged the problem of distinguishing between
racial and political motivations in the redistricting context. See id. , at 242, 257–258; Cromartie I , supra , at
551–552; Bush v. Vera , 517 U. S. 952 –968 (1996)
(plurality opinion).

															The problem arises from the confluence of two
factors. The first is the status under the Constitution of partisan
gerrymandering. As we have acknowledged, “[p]olitics and political
considerations are inseparable from districting and apportionment,” Gaffney v. Cummings , 412 U. S. 735, 753 (1973) ,
and it is well known that state legislative majorities very often
attempt to gain an electoral advantage through that process. See Davis v. Bandemer , 478 U. S. 109, 129 (1986) .
Partisan gerrymandering dates back to the founding, see Vieth , supra , at 274–276 (plural-ity opinion), and
while some might find it distasteful, “[o]ur prior decisions have
made clear that a jurisdiction may engage in constitutional
political gerrymandering, even if it so happens that the most loyal
Democrats happen to be black Democrats and even if the State were conscious of that fact.” Cromartie I , supra ,
at 551 (emphasis in original); Vera , supra , at 964
(plurality opinion).

															The second factor is that “racial identification
is highly correlated with political affiliation” in many
jurisdictions. Cromartie II , 532 U. S., at 243
(describing correlation in North Carolina). This phenomenon makes
it difficult to distinguish between political and race-based
decisionmaking. If around 90% of African-American voters cast their
ballots for the Democratic candidate, as they have in recent
elections,[ 3 ] a plan that packs
Democratic voters will look very much like a plans that packs
African-American voters. “[A] legislature may, by placing reliable
Demo-cratic precincts within a district without regard to race, end
up with a district containing more heavily African–American
precincts, but the reasons would be political rather than racial.” Id. , at 245.

															A

															We addressed this knotty problem in Cromartie II, which, as noted, came to us after the District
Court had held a trial and found as a fact that the legislature’s
predominant reason for drawing District 12 was race, not politics. Id ., at 239–241. Our review for clear error in that case did
not exhibit the same diffidence as today’s decision. We carefully
examined each piece of direct and circumstantial evidence on which
the District Court had relied and conceded that this evidence
provided support for the court’s finding. Id. , at 257. Then,
at the end of our opinion, we stated:

															“We can put the matter more generally as
follows: In a case such as this one where majority-minority
districts (or the approximate equivalent) are at issue and where
racial identification correlates highly with political affiliation,
the party attacking the legislatively drawn boundaries must show at
the least that the legislature could have achieved its legitimate
political objectives in alternative ways that are comparably
consistent with traditional districting principles. That party must
also show that those districting alternatives would have brought
about significantly greater racial balance.” Id., at
258.

															Because the plaintiffs had “failed to make any
such showing,” we held that the District Court had clearly erred in
finding that race predominated in drawing District 12. Ibid. Cromartie II plainly meant to establish a
rule for use in a broad class of cases and not a rule to be
employed one time only. We stated that we were “put[ting] the
matter more generally” and were describing what must be shown in
cases “where majority-minority districts (or the approximate
equivalent) are at issue and where racial identification correlates
highly with political affiliation.” Ibid. We identified who
would carry the burden of the new rule (“the party attacking the
legislatively drawn boundaries”) and what that party must show
(that “the legislature could have achieved its legitimate political
objectives in alternative ways that are comparably consistent with
traditional districting principles” while achieving “significantly
greater racial balance”). Ibid. And we reversed the finding
of racial predominance due to the plaintiffs’ failure to carry the
burden established by this evidentiary rule. Ibid. Here, too, the plaintiffs failed to carry that
burden. In this case, as in Cromartie II , the plaintiffs
allege a racial gerrymander, and the State’s defense is that
political motives explain District 12’s boundaries. In such a case, Cromartie II instructed, plaintiffs must submit an
alternative redistricting map demonstrating that the legislature
could have achieved its political goals without the racial effects
giving rise to the racial gerrymandering allegation. But in spite
of this instruction, plaintiffs in this case failed to submit such
a map.[ 4 ] See Brief for
Appellees 31–36. Based on what we said in Cromartie II about the same type of claim involving the same congressional
district , reversal should be a foregone conclusion. It turns
out, however, that the Cromartie II rule was good for one
use only. Even in a case involving the very same district, it is
tossed aside.

															B

															The alternative-map requirement deserves
better. It is a logical response to the difficult problem of
distinguishing between racial and political motivations when race
and political party preference closely correlate.

															This is a problem with serious institutional and
federalism implications. When a federal court says that race was a
legislature’s predominant purpose in drawing a district, it accuses
the legislature of “offensive and demeaning” conduct. Miller , 515 U. S., at 912. Indeed, we have said that
racial gerrymanders “bea[r] an uncomfortable re-semblance to
political apartheid.” Shaw I , 509 U. S., at 647. That
is a grave accusation to level against a state legislature.

															In addition, “[f]ederal-court review of
districting legislation represents a serious intrusion on the most
vital of local functions” because “[i]t is well settled that
reapportionment is primarily the duty and responsibility of the
State.” Miller , supra , at 915 (internal quotation
marks omitted); see also Cromartie II , 532 U. S., at
242. When a federal court finds that race predominated in the
redistricting process, it inserts itself into that process. That is
appropriate—indeed, constitutionally required—if the legislature
truly did draw district boundaries on the basis of race. But if a
court mistakes a political gerrymander for a racial gerrymander, it
illegitimately invades a traditional domain of state authority,
usurping the role of a State’s elected representatives. This does
violence to both the proper role of the Judiciary and the powers
reserved to the States under the Constitution.

															There is a final, often-unstated danger where
race and politics correlate: that the federal courts will be
transformed into weapons of political warfare. Unless courts
“exercise extraordinary caution” in distinguishing race-based
redistricting from politics-based redistricting, Miller , supra , at 916, they will invite the losers in the
redistricting process to seek to obtain in court what they could
not achieve in the political arena. If the majority party draws
districts to favor itself, the minority party can deny the majority
its political victory by prevailing on a racial gerrymandering
claim. Even if the minority party loses in court, it can exact a
heavy price by using the judicial process to engage in political
trench warfare for years on end.

															Although I do not imply that this is what
occurred here, this case does reflect what litigation of
this sort can look like. This is the fifth time that North
Carolina’s 12th Congressional District has come before this Court
since 1993, and we have almost reached a new redistricting cycle
without any certainty as to the constitutionality of North
Carolina’s current redistricting map. Given these dangers, Cromartie II was justified in crafting an evidentiary rule
to prevent false positives.[ 5 ]

															C

															The majority nevertheless absolves the
challengers of their failure to submit an alternative map. It
argues that an alternative map cannot be “the only means” of
proving racial predominance, and it concludes from this that an
alternative map “does not matter in this case.” Ante , at
29–30 (emphasis in original). But even if there are cases in which
a plaintiff could prove a racial gerrymandering claim without an
alternative map, they would be exceptional ones in which the
evidence of racial predominance is overwhelming. This most
definitely is not one of those cases, see Part III–C, infra ,
and the plaintiffs’ failure to produce an alternative map mandates
reversal. Moreover, even in an exceptional case, the absence of
such a map would still be strong evidence that a district’s
boundaries were determined by politics rather than race.[ 6 ] The absence of a map would “matter.”
Cf. ante , at 30.

															The majority questions the legitimacy of the
alternative-map requirement, ante , at 29–31, and n. 15,
but the rule is a sound one. It rests on familiar principles
regarding the allocation of the burdens of production and
persuasion and the assessment of evidence. First, in accordance
with the general rule in civil cases, plaintiffs in a case like
this bear the burden of proving that the legislature’s motive was
unconstitutional. Second, what must be shown is not simply that
race played a part in the districting process but that it played
the predominant role. Third, a party challenging a districting plan
must overcome the strong presumption that the plan was drawn for
constitutionally permissible reasons. Miller , supra ,
at 915. Fourth, when those responsible for adopting a challenged
plan contend that the plan was devised for partisan political ends,
they are making an admission that may not sit well with voters, so
the explanation should not be lightly dismissed. Cf. Fed. Rule
Evid. 804(b)(3). And finally, the Cromartie II rule takes
into account the difficulty of proving a negative.

															For challengers like those in the present case,
producing a map that meets the Cromartie II test should not
be hard if the predominant reason for a challenged plan really was
race and not politics. Plaintiffs mounting a challenge to a
districting plan are almost always sophisticated litigants who have
the assistance of experts, and that is certainly true in the
present case. Today, an expert with a computer can easily churn out
redistricting maps that control for any number of specified
criteria, including prior voting patterns and political party
registration. Therefore, if it is indeed possible to find a map
that meets the Cromartie II test, it should not be too hard
for the challengers to do so. The State, on the other hand, cannot
prove that no map meeting the Cromartie II test can be
drawn. Even if a State submits, say, 100 alternative maps that fail
the test, that would not prove that no such map could pass it. The
relative ease with which the opposing parties can gather evidence
is a familiar consideration in allocating the burden of production.
See 1 C. Mueller & L. Kirkpatrick, Federal Evidence §63, p. 316
(2d ed. 1994); 21 C. Wright & K. Graham, Federal Practice and
Procedure §5122, pp. 556–557 (1977).

															III

															Even if we set aside the challengers’ failure
to submit an alternative map, the District Court’s finding that
race predominated in the drawing of District 12 is clearly
erroneous. The State offered strong and coherent evidence that
politics, not race, was the legislature’s predominant aim, and the
evidence supporting the District Court’s contrary finding is weak
and manifestly inadequate in light of the high evidentiary standard
that our cases require challengers to meet in order to prove racial
predominance.[ 7 ]

															My analysis will proceed in three steps. First,
I will discuss what the legislature’s mapmaker did and why this
approach is entirely consistent with his stated political
objectives. Then, I will explain why this approach inevitably had
the racial effect to which the challengers object. Finally, I will
address the evidence of racial predominance on which the majority
relies and show why it is inadequate to sustain the District
Court’s judgment.

															A

															In order to understand the mapmaker’s
approach, the first element to be kept in mind is that the basic
shape of District 12 was legitimately taken as a given. When a new
census requires redistricting, it is a common practice to start
with the plan used in the prior map and to change the boundaries of
the prior districts only as needed to comply with the one-person,
one-vote mandate and to achieve other desired ends. This approach
honors settled expectations and, if the prior plan survived legal
challenge, minimizes the risk that the new plan will be overturned.
And that is the approach taken by the veteran mapmaker in the
present case, Dr. Thomas Hofeller. App. 523 (“the normal starting
point is always from the existing districts”).

															Dr. Hofeller began with the prior version of
District 12 even though that version had a strange, serpentine
shape. Cromartie I , 526 U. S., at 544; App. 1163. That
design has a long history. It was first adopted in 1992, and
subsequent redistricting plans have built on the 1992 plan. Ibid. In Cromartie II , we sustained the
constitutionality of the 1997 version of District 12, which
featured the same basic shape. See 532 U. S., at 258. And
retention of this same basic shape is not challenged in this
case.[ 8 ]

															Using the prior design as his starting point,
Dr. Hofeller assumed that District 12 would remain a “strong
Democratic distric[t].” App. 521. He stated that he drew “the
[overall redistricting] plan to . . . have an increased
number of competitive districts for GOP candidates,” id ., at
520, and that he therefore moved more Democratic voters into
District 12 in order to “increase Republican opportunities in the
surrounding districts,” id ., at 1606.

															Under the map now before us, District 12 is
bordered by four districts.[ 9 ]
Running counterclockwise, they are: District 5 to the northwest;
District 9 to the southwest; District 8 to the southeast; and
District 6 to the northeast. See Appendix, ante . According
to Dr. Hofeller, the aim was to make these four
districts—considered as a whole—more secure for Republicans. App.
1606, 2696.

															To do this, Dr. Hofeller set out in search of
pockets of Democratic voters that could be moved into District 12
from areas adjoining or very close to District 12’s prior
boundaries. Of the six counties through which District 12 passes,
the three most heavily Democratic (and also the most populous) are
Forsyth, Guilford, and Mecklenburg, which contain the major
population centers of Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Charlotte,
respectively. See 7 Record 480–482; App. 1141. As a measure of
voting preferences, Dr. Hofeller used the results of the then-most
recent Presidential election, i.e. , the election of 2008. Id., at 1149, 2697, 2721–2722. In that election, these three
counties voted strongly for the Democratic candidate, then-Senator
Barack Obama, while the other three counties, Cabarrus, Davidson,
and Rowan, all voted for the Republican candidate, Senator John
McCain. See 4 Record 1341–1342.

															Two of the three Democratic counties, Forsyth
and Guilford, are located at the northern end of District 12, while
the other Democratic county, Mecklenburg, is on the southern end.
See Appendix, ante. The middle of the district (often called
the “corridor”) passes through the three more Republican-friendly
counties—Cabarrus, Davidson, and Rowan. Ibid. Thus, if a
mapmaker sat down to increase the proportion of Democrats in
District 12 and to reduce the proportion in neighboring districts,
the most obvious way to do that was to pull additional Democrats
into the district from the north and south (the most populous and
heavily Democratic counties) while shifting Republican voters out
of the corridor.

															That, in essence, is what Dr. Hofeller did—as
the majority acknowledges. Ante , at 6 (Dr. Hofeller
“narrow[ed District 12’s] already snakelike body while adding areas
at either end”); App. 1150 (Table 1), 1163. Dr. Hofeller testified
that he sought to shift parts of Mecklenburg County out of
Districts 8 and 9 (in order to reduce the percentage of Democrats
in these two districts) and that this required him to increase the
coverage of Mecklenburg County in District 12. Id ., at
1142–1143, 1607, 2753.

															Dr. Hofeller testified that he also had
political plans for the current map’s District 6, which differed
substantially from the version in the prior map. Dr. Hofeller
wanted to improve the Republicans’ prospects in this new district
by minimizing its coverage of Guilford County’s Democratic
population. Id., at 1143, 1607, 2693, 2697, 2752. That also
meant increasing the population of Guilford County Democrats in
District 12. Id ., at 1143, 1607, 2697.

															This influx of Democratic voters from the two
most populous counties in District 12 required shedding voters
elsewhere in order to comply with this Court’s mandate of
one-person, one-vote, see Kirkpatrick v. Preisler ,
394 U. S. 526 –531 (1969),[ 10 ] and the population removed had to be added to a
bordering district. App. 523. Parts of Davidson and Rowan Counties
were therefore shifted to District 5, id ., at 1143, 1150
(Table 1), but Dr. Hofeller testified that this would not have been
sufficient to satisfy the one-person, one-vote standard, so he also
had to move voters from heavily Democratic Forsyth County into
District 5, id ., at 1143, 2697, 2752–2753. Doing so did not
undermine his political objective, he explained, because District 5
“was stronger [for Republicans] to begin with and could take those
[Forsyth] Democratic precincts” without endangering Republican
chances in the district. Id ., at 2753; see also id .,
at 2697. The end result was that, under the new map now at issue,
the three major counties in the north and south constitute a larger
percentage of District 12’s total population, while the corridor
lost population. See id ., at 1150 (Table 1), 2149 (Finding
187).

															A comparison of the 2008 Presidential election
vote under the old and new versions of the districts shows the
effect of Dr. Hofeller’s map. District 8 (which, of the four
districts bordering District 12 under the 2011 map, was the most
Democratic district) saw a drop of almost 11% in the Democratic
vote under the new map. See 2 Record 354, 421. District 9 saw a
drop in the percentage of registered Democrats, id. , at 350,
417, although the vote percentage for the Democratic Presidential
candidate remained essentially the same (increasing by 0.39%). Id. , at 354, 421. District 5, which was heavily Republican
under the prior map and was redrawn to absorb Democrats from
Forsyth County, saw about a 7-point swing in favor of the
Democratic candidate, but it remained a strong Republican district. Ibid. New District 6 is less susceptible to comparison
because its boundaries are completely different from the district
bearing that number under the old plan, but the new District 6 was
solidly Republican, with a Republican Presidential vote percentage
of nearly 56%. Ibid. As stated by the state court that
considered and rejected the same constitutional challenge now
before us:

															“By increasing the number of Democratic
voters in the 2011 Twelfth Congressional District located in
Mecklenburg and Guilford Counties, the 2011 Congressional Plan
created other districts that were more competitive for Republican
candidates as compared to the 2001 versions of these districts
. . . .” App. 2150 (Finding 191).

															The results of subsequent congressional
elections show that Dr. Hofeller’s plan achieved its goal. In 2010,
prior to the adoption of the current plan, Democrats won 7 of the
13 districts, including District 8.[ 11 ] But by 2016, Republicans controlled 10 of the 13
districts, including District 8, and all the Republican candidates
for the House of Representatives won their races with at least 56%
of the vote.[ 12 ] In
accordance with the map’s design, the only Democratic seats
remaining after 2016 were in Districts 1, 4, and 12. Id., at
521.

															In sum, there is strong evidence in the record
to sup-port Dr. Hofeller’s testimony that the changes made to the
2001 map were designed to maximize Republican opportunities.

															B

															I now turn to the connection between the
mapmaker’s strategy and the effect on the percentage of
African-Americans in District 12.

															As we recognized in Cromartie II ,
political party preference and race are highly correlated in North
Carolina generally and in the area of Congressional District 12 in
particular. App. 2022 (state trial court finding that “racial
identification correlates highly with political affiliation” in
North Carolina). The challenger’s expert, Dr. Stephen Ansolabehere,
corroborated this important point. Dr. Ansolabehere calculated the
statewide correlation between race and voting in 2008[ 13 ] and found a correlation of 0.8,
which is “very high.” Id., at 342, 352 (Table 1). See also
J. Levin, J. Fox, & D. Forde, Elementary Statistics in Social
Research 370 (12th ed. 2014); R. Witte & J. Witte, Statistics
138 (10th ed. 2015).

															In the area of District 12, the correlation is
even higher. There, Dr. Ansolabehere found that the correlation
“approach[ed] 1,” App. 342, that is, almost complete overlap. These
black Democrats also constitute a supermajority of Democrats in the
area covered by the district. Under the 2001 version of District
12—which was drawn by Democrats and was never challenged as a
racial gerrymander—black registered voters constituted 71.44% of
Democrats in the district. 2 Record 350; see also App. 2145
(Finding 173).[ 14 ] What this
means is that a mapmaker seeking to pull Democrats into District 12
would unavoidably pull in a very large percentage of
African-Americans.

															The distribution of Democratic voters magnified
this effect. Dr. Hofeller’s plan required the identification of
areas of Democratic strength that were near District 12’s prior
boundaries. Dr. Hofeller prepared maps showing the distribution of
Democratic voters by precinct,[ 15 ] see id ., at 1148–1149, 1176–1177, 1181, and
those maps show that these voters were highly concentrated around
the major urban areas of Winston-Salem (in Forsyth County),
Greensboro (in Guilford County), and Charlotte (in Mecklenberg
County). Dr. Ansolabehere, the challengers’ expert, prepared maps
showing the distribution of black registered voters in these same
counties, see id ., at 322–328; 1 Record 128–133, and a
comparison of these two sets of maps reveals that the clusters of
Democratic voters generally overlap with those of registered black
voters. In other words, the population of nearby Democrats who
could be moved into District 12 was heavily black.

															The upshot is that, so long as the legislature
chose to retain the basic shape of District 12 and to increase the
number of Democrats in the district, it was inevitable that the
Democrats brought in would be disproportionately black.

															None of this should come as a surprise. After
all, when the basic shape of District 12 was created after the 1990
census, the express goal of the North Carolina Legislature was to
create a majority-minority district. See Shaw I , 509
U. S., at 633–636. It has its unusual shape because it
was originally designed to capture pockets of black voters. See Shaw v. Hunt , 517 U. S. 899 –906 (1996) ( Shaw
II ). Although the legislature has modified the district since
then, see Cromartie I , 526 U. S., at 544 (describing
changes from the 1991 version to the 1997 version), “it retains its
basic ‘snakelike’ shape and continues to track Interstate 85.” Ibid. ; 1 Record 35 (Appellees’ Complaint) (“Congressional
District 12 has existed in roughly its current form since 1992,
when it was drawn as a majority African-American district
. . . ”); see also App. 1163 (showing the 1997,
2001, and 2011 versions of District 12). The original design of the
district was devised to ensure a high concentration of black
voters, and as long as the basic design is retained (as it has
been), one would expect that to continue.

															While plaintiffs failed to offer any alternative
map, Dr. Hofeller produced a map showing what District 12 would
have looked like if his computer was programmed simply to maximize
the Democratic vote percentage in the district, while still abiding
by the requirement of one-person, one-vote. Id., at 1148.
The result was a version of District 12 that is very similar to the
version approved by the North Carolina Legislature. See id .,
at 1175; id ., at 1615–1618. Indeed, this maximum-Democratic
plan had a black voting age population of 50.73%, which is actually higher than District 12’s black voting age population of
50.66%. Id., at 1154 (Table 5).

															Thus, the increase in the black voting age
population of District 12 is easily explained by a coherent (and
generally successful) political strategy. Cromartie II , 532
U. S., at 245 (“[A] legislature may, by placing reliable
Democratic precincts within a district without regard to race, end
up with a district containing more heavily African-American
precincts, but the reasons would be political rather than
racial”).

															Amazingly, a reader of the majority opinion (and
the opinion of the District Court) would remain almost entirely
ignorant of the legislature’s political strategy and the
relationship between that strategy and the racial composition of
District 12.[ 16 ] The
majority’s analysis is like Hamlet without the prince.[ 17 ]

															C

															The majority focuses almost all its attention
on a few references to race by those responsible for the drafting
and adoption of the redistricting plan. But the majority reads far
too much into these references. First, what the plaintiffs had to
prove was not simply that race played some role in the
districting process but that it was the legislature’s predominant consideration. Second, as I have explained, a
court must exercise “extraordinary caution” before finding that a
state legislature’s predominant reason for a districting plan was
racial. Miller, 515 U. S., at 916. This means that
comments should not be taken out of context and given the most
sinister possible meaning. Third, the findings of the state courts
in a virtually identical challenge to District 12 are entitled to
respectful consideration. A North Carolina trial court, after
hearing much the same evidence as the court below, found that the
legislature’s predominant motive was political, not racial. That
decision was affirmed by the North Carolina Supreme Court. Dickson v . Rucho , 367 N. C. 542, 766
S. E. 2d 238 (2014), vacated and remanded, 575 U. S. ___,
aff ’d on remand, 368 N. C. 481, 781 S. E. 2d 404
(2015), cert. pending, No. 16–24. Even if the judgment in the state
case does not bar the present case under the doctrine of res
judicata, see ante , at 7–9, the state-court finding
illustrates the thinness of the plaintiffs’ proof.

															Finally, it must be kept in mind that references
to race by those responsible for drawing or adopting a
redistricting plan are not necessarily evidence that the plan was
adopted for improper racial reasons. Under our precedents, it is
unconstitutional for the government to consider race in almost any
context, and therefore any mention of race by the decisionmakers
may be cause for suspicion. We have said, however, that that is not
so in the redistricting context. For one thing, a State like North
Caro-lina that was either wholly or partially within the coverage
of §5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 could not redistrict without
heeding that provision’s prohibition against racial retrogression,
see 52 U. S. C. §10304(b); Alabama Legislative Black
Caucus v. Alabama , 575 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2015)
(slip op., at 3–4), and therefore race had to be kept in mind. In
addition, all legislatures must also take into account the
possibility of a challenge under §2 of the Voting Rights Act
claiming that a plan illegally dilutes the voting strength of a
minority community. See League of United Latin American
Citizens v. Perry , 548 U. S. 399, 425 (2006) . If a
State ultimately concludes that it must take race into account in
order to comply with the Voting Rights Act, it must show that it
had a “ ‘strong basis in evidence’ in support of the
(race-based) choice that it has made.” Alabama Legislative Black
Caucus , supra , at ___ (slip op., at 22). But those
involved in the redistricting process may legitimately make
statements about Voting Rights Act compliance before deciding that
the Act does not provide a need for race-based districting. And it
is understandable for such individuals to explain that a
race-neutral plan happens to satisfy the criteria on which Voting
Rights Act challengers might insist. In short, because of the
Voting Rights Act, consideration and discussion of the racial
effects of a plan may be expected.

															1 The June 17, 2011, Statement I begin with a piece of evidence that the
majority does not mention, namely, the very first item cited
by the District Court in support of its racial-predominance
finding. This evidence consisted of a June 17, 2001, statement by
Senator Rucho and Representative Lewis, the state legislators who
took the lead in the adoption of the current map. In that
statement, Rucho and Lewis referred to “constructing [Voting Rights
Act] majority black districts.” App. 1025. Seizing upon the use of
the plural term “districts,” the court below seemed to think that
it had found a smoking gun. Harris v. McCrory , 159
F. Supp. 3d 600, 616 (MDNC 2016) . The State had
insisted that its plan drew only one majority-minority
congressional district, District 1, but since the June 17 statement
“clearly refers to multiple districts that are now majority
minority,” ibid., the court below viewed the statement as
telling evidence that an additional congressional district,
presumably District 12, had been intentionally designed to be a
majority-minority district and was thus based on race.

															There is a glaring problem with this analysis:
The June 17 statement was about state legislative districts ,
not federal congressional districts . See App. 1024–1033. The
United States, as amicus curiae in support of plaintiffs,
concedes that the District Court made a mistake by relying on the
June 17 statement. Brief for United States 27, n. 13. The
majority, by contrast, tries to ignore this error. But the District
Court gave the June 17 statement pride-of-place in its opinion,
mentioning it first in its analysis, and the District Court seemed
to think that this evidence was particularly significant, stating
that the reference to multiple districts was not “the result of
happenstance, a mere slip of the pen.” 159 F. Supp. 3d, at
616. The District Court’s error shows a troubling lack of
precision.

															2 The §5 Preclearance Request Under §5 of the Voting Rights Act, North
Carolina requested preclearance from the Department of Justice
shortly after the Legislature approved the new congressional plan. Id. , at 608. In its preclearance application, the State
noted that “[o]ne of the concerns of the Redistricting Chairs was
that in 1992, the Justice Department had objected to the 1991
Congressional Plan because of a failure by the State to create a
second majority minority district.” App. 478. The application says
that the Redistricting Chairs “sought input from Congressman [Mel]
Watt[, the African-American incumbent who represented District 12,]
regarding options for re-drawing his district,” and that after this
consultation, “the Chairs had the impression that Congressman Watt
would oppose any redrawing of the Twelfth District . . .
as originally contemplated by the 1992 Justice Department
objection.” Ibid. The Chairs drew District 12 “ [b]ased in part on this input from Congressman Watt.” Id ., at 478–479. Two sentences later in the same paragraph,
the application observed that the black voting age population for
District 12 went up from 43.77% to 50.66% and that therefore the
district “maintains, and in fact increases, the African-American
community’s ability to elect their candidate of choice in District
12.” Id ., at 479.

															According to the majority, this statement shows
a “determination to concentrate black voters in District 12.” Ante , at 23. In fact, it shows no such thing. The statement
explains that Senator Rucho and Representative Lewis decided not to construct District 12 as a majority-minority
district—as the 1992 Justice Department had demanded—“[b]ased in
part on” the input they received from Congressman Watt, whom they
thought “would oppose” drawing the district “as originally
contemplated by the 1992 Justice Department objection.” App.
478–479. If anything, this document cuts against a finding
of racial predominance.

															The statement’s matter-of-fact reference to the
increase in District 12’s black voting age population hardly shows
that the legislature altered District 12 for the purpose of
causing this increase. An entirely natural interpretation is that
the Redistricting Chairs simply reported this fact so that it would
be before the Justice Department in the event that the Department
had renewed Voting Rights Act concerns. Only by reading a great
deal between the lines and adopting the most sinister possible
interpretation can the statement be viewed as pointed evidence of a
predominantly racial motive.

															3 The Mel Watt Testimony In both the District Court and the state trial
court, Congressman Watt testified that, while the redistricting
plan was being developed, Senator Rucho invited him to his home to
discuss the new boundaries of District 12. Id., at
2368–2369, 1343–1344. According to Congressman Watt, Senator Rucho
said that the Republican leadership wanted him to “ramp the 12th
Congressional District up to over 50 percent black” because “they
believed it was required . . . by the Voting Rights Act.” Id., at 1344, 2369, 2393. In the state proceedings, Senator
Rucho denied making any such statement, id., at 1703, and
another state legislator present at the meeting, Representative
Ruth Samuelson, gave similar testimony, id., at 1698.
Neither Senator Rucho nor Representative Samuelson testified in
federal court (although their state court testimony was made part
of the federal record). See id., at 2847. But the District
Court credited Congressman Watt’s testimony based on its assessment
of his demeanor and the consistency of his recollection, 159
F. Supp. 3d, at 617–618, and I accept that credibility finding
for purposes of our review.[ 18 ]

															But even assuming that Congressman Watt’s
recollection was completely accurate, all that his testimony shows
is that legislative leaders at one point in the process thought that they had to draw District 12 as a majority-minority
district in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act; it does not show that they actually did draw District 12 with
the goal of creating a majority-minority district. And as explained
in the discussion of the preclearance request above, Senator Rucho
and Representative Lewis stated that they ultimately turned away
from the creation of a majority-minority district after consulting
with Congressman Watt. “ Based in part on this input from
Congressman Watt,” they said they decided not to draw the
district as the 1992 Department of Justice had suggested—that is,
as a majority-minority district. App. 478–479.

															This account is fully consistent with
Congressman Watt’s testimony about his meeting with Senator Rucho.
Congressman Watt noted that Senator Rucho was uncomfortable with
the notion of increasing the black voting age population, id., at 2369, 2393, and Congressman Watt testified that he
told Senator Rucho that he was opposed to the idea, id., at
1345, 2369, 2393. So it makes sense that Senator Rucho was
dissuaded from taking that course by Congressman Watt’s reaction.
And Dr. Hofeller consistently testified that he was never asked to
meet a particular black voting age population target, see Part
III–C–5, infra, and that the only data displayed on his
screen when he drew District 12 was political data. See infra , at 27, n. 19. Thus, Congressman Watt’s testimony,
even if taken at face value, is entirely consistent with what the
preclearance request recounts: After initially contemplating the
possibility of drawing District 12 as a majority-minority district,
the legislative leadership met with Congressman Watt, who convinced
them not to do so.

															4 Dr. Hofeller’s Statements About Guilford
County Under the prior map, both Guilford County and
the Greensboro African-American community were divided between the
12th and 13th Districts. This had been done, Dr. Hofeller
explained, “to make both the Old 12th and 13th Districts strongly
Democratic.” App. 1103; see also id., at 555, 2821; 1 Record
132–133 (showing racial demographics of Guilford precincts under
2001 and 2011 maps). But the Republican legislature wanted to make
the area surrounding District 12 more Republican. The new map
eliminated the old 13th District and created a new district bearing
that number farther to the east. The territory to the north of
Greensboro that had previously been in the 13th District was placed
in a new district, District 6, which was constructed to be a
Republican-friendly district, and the new map moved more of the
Greensboro area into the new District 12. This move was entirely
consistent with the legislature’s stated goal of concentrating
Democrats in the 12th District and mak-ing the surrounding
districts hospitable to Republican candidates.

															Dr. Hofeller testified that the placement of the
Greensboro African-American community in the 12th District was the
result of this political strategy. He stated that the portion of
Guilford County absorbed by District 12 “wasn’t moved into
CD 12 because it had a substantial black population. It was
moved into CD 12 because it had a substantial Democratic
political voting record . . . .” App. 2824. And
Dr. Hofeller maintained that he was never instructed to draw
District 12 as a majority-minority district or to increase the
district’s black voting age population. See, e.g. , id., at 520, 556–558, 1099, 1603–1604, 2682–2683, 2789.
Instead, he testified that political considerations determined the
boundaries of District 12 and that the only data displayed on his
computer screen when he drew the challenged map was voting data
from the 2008 Presidential election.[ 19 ] Id., at 1149, 2697, 2721–2722.

															Dr. Hofeller acknowledged, however, that there
had been concern about the possibility of a Voting Rights Act
challenge to this treatment of the Greensboro African-American
community. Guilford County was covered by §5 of the Voting Rights
Act, and as noted, §5 prohibits retrogression. Under the old map,
the Guilford County African-American community was split between
the old District 13 and District 12, and in both of those
districts, black voters were able to elect the candidates of their
choice by allying with white Democratic voters. Under the new map,
however, if the Greensboro black community had been split between
District 12 and the new Republican-friendly District 6, the black
voters in the latter district would be unlikely to elect the
candidate of their choice. Placing the African-American community
in District 12 avoided this consequence. Even Congressman Watt
conceded that there were potential §5 concerns relating to the
black community in Guilford County. Id., at 2387–2388.

															The thrust of many of Dr. Hofeller’s statements
about the treatment of Guilford County was that the reuniting of
the Greensboro black community in District 12 was nothing more than
a welcome byproduct of his political strat-egy. He testified that
he first drew the district based on political considerations
and then checked to ensure that Guilford County’s black
population was not fractured. Id., at 2822 (“[W]hen we
checked it, we found that we did not have an issue in Guilford
County with fracturing the black . . . community”); see
also id., at 556, 2821, 2823. This testimony is entirely
innocuous.

															There is no doubt, however, that Dr. Hofeller
also made a few statements that may be read to imply that concern
about Voting Rights Act litigation was part of the motivation for
the treatment of Guilford County. He testified at trial that he
“was instructed [not] to use race in any form except perhaps
with regard to Guilford County .” Id., at 2791 (emphasis
added). See id., at 1103 (the legislature “determined that
it was prudent to reunify the African-American community in
Guilford County”); id., at 558 (“[I]t was decided to reunite
the black community in Guilford County into the Twelfth”).

															These statements by Dr. Hofeller convinced the
District Court that the drawing of District 12 was not a “purely
. . . politically driven affair.” 159 F. Supp. 3d,
at 619. But in order to prevail, the plaintiffs had to show much
more—that race was the predominant reason for the drawing of
District 12, and these few bits of testimony fall far short of that
showing.

															Our decision in Cromartie II illustrates
this point. In that case, the legislature’s mapmaker made a
statement that is remarkably similar to Dr. Hofeller’s. Gerry
Cohen, the “legislative staff member responsible for drafting
districting plans,” reported: “ ‘I have moved Greensboro Black
community into the 12th, and now need to take [about] 60,000 out of
the 12th. I await your direction on this.’ ” 532 U. S.,
at 254. This admission did not persuade the Court that the
legislature’s predominant motive was racial. The majority ignores
this obvious parallel with Cromartie II .

															Moreover, in an attempt to magnify the
importance of the treatment of Guilford County, the majority plays
games with statistics. It states that “District 12 saw a net
increase of more than 25,000 black voters in Guilford County,
relative to a net gain of fewer than 35,000 across the district: So
the newly added parts of that county played a major role in pushing
the district’s BVAP over 50%.” Ante , at 26.

															This is highly misleading. First, since the
black voting age population of District 12 is just barely over
50%—specifically, 50.66%—almost any decision that increased
the number of voting age blacks in District 12 could be said to
have “played a major role in pushing the district’s BVAP over
50%.”

															Second, the majority provides the total number
of voting age blacks added to District 12 from Guilford County
(approximately 25,000) alongside the total number of voting age
blacks added to the district (approximately 35,000), and this has
the effect of making Guilford County look like it is the
overwhelming contributor to the district’s net increase in black
voting age population. In truth, Mecklenburg County was by far the
greatest contributor of voting age blacks to District 12 in both
absolute terms (approximately 147,000) and in terms of new voting
age blacks (approximately 37,000). See App. 384, 500–502. Indeed,
if what matters to the majority is how much individual counties
increased District 12’s black voting age population percentage,
Davidson County deserves attention as well, since the portion of
the county within District 12 lost over 26,000 more voting age
whites than blacks. Ibid. That is greater than the net
number of voting age blacks added to the district by Guilford
County or Mecklenburg County. Ibid. As with so much in the
majority opinion, the issue here is more nuanced—and much more
favorable to the State—than the majority would have it seem.

															5 The July 1, 2011, Statement For reasons similar to those just explained,
the majority makes far too much of a statement issued by Senator
Rucho and Representative Lewis on July 1, 2011, when the new
districting plan was proposed. Particularly in light of Dr.
Hofeller’s later testimony about the legislature’s partisan
objectives, it is apparent that this statement does not paint an
entirely reliable picture of the legislature’s aims. The statement
begins with this proclamation: “From the beginning, our goal has
remained the same: the development of fair and legal congressional
and legislative districts,” id., at 353, and the statement
seriously downplays the role of politics in the map-drawing
process, acknowledging only that “we have not been ignorant of the
partisan impacts of the districts we have created,” id., at
361.

															The statement discusses the treatment of
Guilford County in a section with the heading “Compliance with the
Voting Rights Act.” Id., at 355–358. In that section, Rucho
and Lewis state: “Because of the presence of Guilford County in the
Twelfth District, we have drawn our proposed Twelfth District at a
black voting age level that is above the percentage of black voting
age population found in the current Twelfth District. We believe
that this measure will ensure preclearance of the plan.” Id., at 358.

															The majority and the District Court interpret
this passage to say that Rucho and Lewis decided to move black
voters from Guilford County into District 12 in order to ward off
Voting Rights Act liability. Ante , at 22 (“ Because of the VRA, [Rucho and Lewis] increased the number of
African-Americans” in District 12 (citing 159 F. Supp. 3d, at
617; emphasis in original)). But that is hardly the only plausible
interpretation. The statement could just as easily be understood as
“an explanation by [the] legislature that because they chose
to add Guilford County back into CD 12, the district ended up
with an increased ability to elect African-American candidates,
rather than the legislature explaining that they chose to add
Guilford County back into CD 12 because of the [racial]
results that addition created.” Id., at 635 (Osteen, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part) (emphasis in original).
And because we are obligated to presume the good faith of the North
Carolina Legislature, this latter interpretation is the appropriate
one.

															But even if one adopts the majority’s
interpretation, it adds little to the analysis. The majority’s
close and incriminating reading of a statement issued to win public
support for the new plan may represent poetic justice: Having
attempted to blur the partisan aim of the new District 12, the
legislature is hoisted on its own petard. But poetic justice is not
the type of justice that we are supposed to dispense. This
statement is some evidence that race played a role in the
drawing of District 12, but it is a mistake to give this political
statement too much weight.

															Again, we made precisely this point in Cromartie II . There, the “legislative redistricting leader,”
then-Senator Roy Cooper, testified before a legislative committee
that the proposed plan “ ‘provides for . . . racial and partisan balance .’ ” 532 U. S.,
at 253 (emphasis added). The District Court read the statement
literally and concluded that the district had been drawn with a
racial objective. Ibid. But this Court dismissed the
statement, reasoning that although “the phrase shows that the
legislature considered race, along with other partisan and
geographic considerations; . . . it says little or
nothing about whether race played a predominant role
comparatively speaking.” Ibid. What was good in Cromartie II should also
be good here.

															6 Dr. Ansolabehere’s Testimony Finally, the majority cites Dr. Ansolabehere’s
testimony that black registered voters in the counties covered by
District 12 were more likely to be drawn into District 12 than
white registered voters and that black registered Democrats were
more likely to be pulled in than white registered Democrats. Ante , at 26–27.

															There is an obvious flaw in Dr. Ansolabehere’s
analysis. He assumed that, if race was not the driving force behind
the drawing of District 12, “white and black registered voters
would have approximately the same likelihood of inclusion in a
given Congressional District.” App. 2597 (internal quotation marks
omitted). But that would be true only if black and white voters
were evenly distributed throughout the region, and his own
maps showed that this was not so. See id., at 322–328; 1
Record 128–133. Black voters were concentrated in the cities
located at the north and south ends of the district and constituted
a supermajority of Democrats in the area covered by District 12.
See Part III–B, supra . As long as the basic shape of the
district was retained, moving Democrats from areas outside but
close to the old district boundaries naturally picked up far more
black Democrats than white Democrats.

															This explanation eluded Dr. Ansolabehere because
he refused to consider either the implications of the political
strategy that the legislature claimed to have pursued or the
effects of the changes to District 12 on the surrounding districts.
App. 2578–2582. The result was a distorted—and largely
useless—analysis.

															IV

															Reviewing the evidence outlined
above,[ 20 ] two themes
emerge. First, District 12’s borders and racial composition are
readily explained by political considerations and the effects of
the legislature’s political strategy on the demographics of
District 12. Second, the majority largely ignores this explanation,
as did the court below, and instead adopts the most damning
interpretation of all available evidence.

															Both of these analytical maneuvers violate our
clearly established precedent. Our cases say that we must
“ ‘exercise extraordinary caution’ ” “ ‘where the
State has articulated a legitimate political explanation for its
districting decision,’ ” Cromartie II , supra , at
242 (emphasis deleted); the majority ignores that political
explanation. Our cases say that “the good faith of a state
legislature must be presumed,” Miller , 515 U. S., at
915; the majority presumes the opposite. And Cromartie II held that plaintiffs in a case like this are obligated to produce a
map showing that the legislature could have achieved its political
objectives without the racial effect seen in the challenged plan;
here, the majority junks that rule and says that the plaintiffs’
failure to produce such a map simply “does not matter.” Ante , at 30.

															The judgment below regarding District 12 should
be reversed, and I therefore respectfully dissent. Notes 1 I concur in the judgment
of the Court regarding Congressional District 1. The State concedes
that the district was intentionally created as a majority-minority
district. See Brief for Appellants 44. And appellants have not
satisfied strict scrutiny. 2 Article I, §4, of the
Constitution reserves to state legislatures the power to prescribe
“[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators
and Representatives,” subject to Congress’s authority to “make or
alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing
Senators.” 3 According to polling
data, around 90% of African-American voters have voted for the
Democratic candidate for President in recent years. See
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/groups-voted-2016/
(all Internet materials as last visited May 19, 2017) (in 2016,
88%);
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-2012/
(in 2012, 93%);
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-2008/
(in 2008, 95%);
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-2004/
(in 2004, 88%);
https:// ropercenter.cornell.edu /polls /us-elections /how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-2000/
(in 2000, 90%). 4 The challengers’ failure
to do so is especially glaring given that at least two alternative
maps were introduced during the legislative debates over the
2011 map, see 2 Record 357–366, 402–411; App. 883–887, though
neither party contends that those maps met the legislature’s
political goals. 5 Ignoring all of these
well-founded reasons supporting the alternative-map requirement,
the majority mischaracterizes my argument as, at bottom, resting on
the proposition that “little is lost by making suits like this one
as hard as possible.” Ante , at 31, n. 15. That is not
my view, and it is richly ironic for the Court that announced the
alternative-map requirement to accuse those who defend the
requirement of erecting illegitimate and unnecessary barriers to
the vindication of constitu-tional rights. 6 The majority cites Bush v. Vera , 517 U. S. 952 (1996) , as proof
that the lack of an alternative-map requirement has not “made any
difference” in our past cases. Ante , at 30. Vera was
decided before Cromartie II , 532 U. S. 234 (2001) ,
announced the alternative-map requirement, so its failure to
mention that requirement is hardly surprising. 7 The majority accuses me
of failing to accord proper deference to the District Court’s
factual findings and of disregarding the clear-error standard of
review, ante , at 20, n. 8, but that is nonsense. Unlike
the majority, I simply follow Cromartie II by evaluating the
District Court’s findings in light of the plaintiffs’
burden . See 532 U. S., at 241, 257. The heavier a
plaintiffs’ evidentiary burden, the harder it is to find that
plaintiffs have carried their burden—and the more likely that it
would be clearly erroneous to find that they have. In this context,
we are supposed to presume that the North Carolina Legislature
acted in good faith and exercise “extraordinary caution” before
rejecting the legislature’s political explanation. Miller v. Johnson , 515 U. S. 900 –916 (1995). Given that the
State has offered a coherent and persuasive political explanation
for District 12’s boundaries, plaintiffs bear a “demanding” burden
in attempting to prove racial predominance. Cromartie II , supra , at 241, 257. Because the evidence they have put
forward is so weak, see Part III–C, infra , they have failed
to carry that burden, and it was clear error for the District Court
to hold otherwise. See Cromartie II , supra , at 241,
257 (applying the same clear-error analysis that I apply
here). 8 This same basic shape was
retained in the map proposed in the state legislature by the
Democratic leadership and in the map submitted by the Southern
Coalition for Social Justice. See 2 Record 402, 357. 9 A fifth district,
District 2, appears to touch District 12 at the border of Guilford
and Randolph Counties, but only to a de minimis extent. 10 District 12 was overpopulated by
2,847 people heading into the 2011 redistricting cycle. App. 1115;
2 Record 347. 11 North
Carolina State Board of Elections, 11/02/2010 Official General
Election Results—Statewide,
http://er.ncsbe.gov/?election_dt=11/02/2010&county_id=0&office=FED&contest=0. 12 North
Carolina State Board of Elections, 11/08/2016 Official General
Election Results—Statewide,
http://er.ncsbe.gov/?election_dt=11/08/2016&county_id=0&office=FED&contest=0. 13 As
noted, Dr. Hofeller used the results of the 2008 Presidential
election as a measure of party preference. In 2008, the Democratic
candidate for President was then-Senator Barack Obama, the first
black major party Presidential nominee, and it is true that
President Obama won a higher percentage of the nationwide
African-American vote in 2008 (95%) than did the Democratic
Presidential candidates in 2000 (90%), 2004 (88%), and 2016 (88%).
See supra , at 5, n. 3. But as these figures show, the
correlation between race and political party preference was very
high in all these elections. Therefore, the use of 2008 statistics
does not appear to have substantially affected the
analysis. 14 Even
two alternative redistricting plans offered prior to the enactment
of the 2011 map—one submitted by the Southern Coalition for Social
Justice and the other submitted by Democratic leaders in the state
legislature—retained the basic shape of District 12 and resulted in
black voters constituting 71.53% and 69.14% of registered
Democrats, respectively. 2 Record 361 (Southern Coalition for
Social Justice map), 406 (Congressional Fair and Legal map); see
also App. 883–887, 2071 (Finding 34), 2145 (Finding
173). 15 To
minimize jargon, I will use the term “precincts” to refer to vote
tabulation districts (VTDs). See id ., at 1609–1610, for an
explanation of VTDs. 16 The
District Court’s description of the legislature’s political
strat-egy was cursory, and it spent no time analyzing the
demographics of the region. See Harris v. McCrory ,
159 F. Supp. 3d 600, 618–619 (MDNC 2016). 17 The
majority concedes that this is a “thoroughly two-sided case,” ante , at 18, n. 6, yet the majority’s opinion is
thoroughly one sided. It offers no excuse for its failure to
meaningfully describe—much less engage with—the State’s political
explanation for District 12’s boundaries. Instead, it tries to
change the subject, accusing me of treating the State’s account as
essentially uncontested. Ante, at 19, n. 6. This is a
hollow accusation. In this opinion, I lay out the evidence
supporting the State’s political explanation in Parts III–A and
III–B, but I do not accept that account at face value. Instead, I
go on to demonstrate that the plaintiffs’ contrary arguments are
exceedingly weak (Part III–C). Only after considering the evidence
on both sides do I conclude that the State’s explanation holds
up. 18 That
being said, Congressman Watt’s testimony was double-hearsay:
Congressman Watt testified about what Senator Rucho said someone
else said. See App. 1345 (state trial court evidentiary
ruling). For unknown reasons, Appellants failed to raise this
objection below, but that only means that the testimony was admitted . The weight of that testimony is a different
matter, and in general, hearsay should be viewed with great
skepticism. Ellicott v. Pearl , 10 Pet. 412, 436
(1836) (majority opinion of Story, J.) (hearsay is “exceedingly
infirm, unsatisfactory and intrinsically weak in its very nature
and character”); Queen v. Hepburn , 7 Cranch 290, 296
(1813) (majority opinion of Marshall, C. J.) (“Its intrinsic
weakness, its incompetency to satisfy the mind of the existence of
the fact, and the frauds which might be practiced under its cover,
combine to support the rule that hearsay evidence is totally
inadmissible”); see also Chambers v. Mississippi , 410
U. S. 284, 298 (1973) . 19 Significantly, while the District
Court doubted Dr. Hofeller’s contention that politics, not race,
dictated the boundaries of District 12 and that Dr. Hofeller was
unaware of the relevant racial demographics in the region, see 159
F. Supp. 3d, at 619–620, and n. 8, it did not dispute
that only political data was displayed on his screen when he drew
the district. The state trial court expressly found that only
political data was displayed on Dr. Hofeller’s screen. See App.
2150 (Finding 188). 20 The
District Court relied on other evidence as well, but its probative
value is so weak that even the majority does not cite
it.