Cite as: 581 U. S. ____ (2017) 23 Opinion of the Court 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 —————— 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.