12 COOPER v. HARRIS Opinion of the Court 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 —————— 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.