Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 3 Per Curiam the public interest.” Id., at 20. Plaintiffs made no such showing below. Even if we assume—contrary to the findings of the District Court— that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims, the balance of equities and the public interest tilted against their request for a preliminary injunction. First, a party requesting a preliminary injunction must generally show reasonable diligence. Cf. Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392, 396 (1946). That is as true in election law cases as elsewhere. See Lucas v. Townsend, 486 U. S. 1301, 1305 (1988) (KENNEDY, J., in chambers); Fishman v. Schaffer, 429 U. S. 1325, 1330 (1976) (Marshall, J., in chambers). In this case, appellants did not move for a preliminary injunction in the District Court until six years, and three general elections, after the 2011 map was adopted, and over three years after the plaintiffs’ first complaint was filed. Plaintiffs argue that they have nevertheless pursued their claims diligently, and they attribute their delay in seeking a preliminary injunction to the “convoluted procedural history of the case” and the “dogged refusal to cooperate in discovery” by state officials. Reply Brief 22. Yet the record suggests that the delay largely arose from a circumstance within plaintiffs’ control: namely, their failure to plead the claims giving rise to their request for preliminary injunctive relief until 2016. Although one of the seven plaintiffs before us filed a complaint in 2013 alleging that Maryland’s congressional map was an unconstitutional gerrymander, that initial complaint did not present the retaliation theory asserted here. See Amended Complaint, Doc. 11, p. 3 (Dec. 2, 2013) (explaining that the gerrymandering claim did not turn upon “the reason or intent of the legislature” in adopting the map). It was not until 2016 that the remaining plaintiffs joined the case and filed an amended complaint alleging that Maryland officials intentionally retaliated against