4 RUCHO v. COMMON CAUSE Opinion of the Court Places and Manner of holding Elections” for Members of Congress. After a four-day trial, the three-judge District Court unanimously concluded that the 2016 Plan violated the Equal Protection Clause and Article I of the Constitution. The court further held, with Judge Osteen dissenting, that the Plan violated the First Amendment. Common Cause v. Rucho, 279 F. Supp. 3d 587 (MDNC 2018). The defendants appealed directly to this Court under 28 U. S. C. §1253. While that appeal was pending, we decided Gill v. Whitford, 585 U. S. ___ (2018), a partisan gerrymandering case out of Wisconsin. In that case, we held that a plaintiff asserting a partisan gerrymandering claim based on a theory of vote dilution must establish standing by showing he lives in an allegedly “cracked” or “packed” district. Id., at ___ (slip op., at 17). A “cracked” district is one in which a party’s supporters are divided among multiple districts, so that they fall short of a majority in each; a “packed” district is one in which a party’s supporters are highly concentrated, so they win that district by a large margin, “wasting” many votes that would improve their chances in others. Id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 3–4). After deciding Gill, we remanded the present case for further consideration by the District Court. 585 U. S. ___ (2018). On remand, the District Court again struck down the 2016 Plan. 318 F. Supp. 3d 777. It found standing and concluded that the case was appropriate for judicial resolution. On the merits, the court found that “the General Assembly’s predominant intent was to discriminate against voters who supported or were likely to support non-Republican candidates,” and to “entrench Republican candidates” through widespread cracking and packing of Democratic voters. Id., at 883–884. The court rejected the defendants’ arguments that the distribution of Republican and Democratic voters throughout North Carolina and the