4 COOPER v. HARRIS Syllabus groups insufficiently large under Gingles), then §2 also cannot be satisfied by crossover districts (for groups meeting Gingles’ size condition). But, as this Court’s §2 jurisprudence makes clear, unless each of the three Gingles prerequisites is established, “there neither has been a wrong nor can be a remedy.” Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25, 41. North Carolina’s belief that it was compelled to redraw District 1 (a successful crossover district) as a majority-minority district thus rested on a pure error of law. Accordingly, the Court upholds the District Court’s conclusion that the State’s use of race as the predominant factor in designing District 1 does not withstand strict scrutiny. Pp. 12–18. 3. The District Court also did not clearly err by finding that race predominated in the redrawing of District 12. Pp. 18–34. (a) The district’s legality turns solely on which of two possible reasons predominantly explains its reconfiguration. The plaintiffs contended at trial that North Carolina intentionally increased District 12’s BVAP in the name of ensuring preclearance under §5 of the VRA. According to the State, by contrast, the mapmakers moved voters in and out of the district as part of a “strictly” political gerrymander, without regard to race. After hearing evidence supporting both parties’ accounts, the District Court accepted the plaintiffs’. Getting to the bottom of a dispute like this one poses special challenges for a trial court, which must make “ ‘a sensitive inquiry’ ” into all “ ‘circumstantial and direct evidence of intent’ ” to assess whether the plaintiffs have proved that race, not politics, drove a district’s lines. Hunt v. Cromartie, 526 U. S. 541, 546 (Cromartie I). This Court’s job is different—and generally easier. It affirms a trial court’s factual finding as to racial predominance so long as the finding is “plausible”; it reverses only when “left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Anderson, 470 U. S., at 573–574. In assessing a finding’s plausibility, moreover, the Court gives singular deference to a trial court’s judgments about the credibility of witnesses. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 52(a)(6). Applying those principles here, the evidence at trial—including live witness testimony subject to credibility determinations—adequately supports the District Court’s conclusion that race, not politics, accounted for District 12’s reconfiguration. And contrary to the State’s view, the court had no call to dismiss this challenge just because the plaintiffs did not proffer an alternative design for District 12. Pp. 18–21. (b) By slimming the district and adding a couple of knobs to its snakelike body, North Carolina added 35,000 African-Americans and subtracted 50,000 whites, turning District 12 into a majorityminority district. State Senator Robert Rucho and State Representative David Lewis—the chairs of the two committees responsible for