20 COOPER v. HARRIS Opinion of the Court prove that the former drove a district’s lines. Cromartie I, 526 U. S., at 546 (internal quotation marks omitted).7 Our job is different—and generally easier. As described earlier, we review a district court’s finding as to racial predominance only for clear error, except when the court made a legal mistake. See supra, at 3–4. Under that standard of review, we affirm the court’s finding so long as it is “plausible”; we reverse only when “left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Anderson, 470 U. S., at 573–574; see supra, at 4. And in deciding which side of that line to come down on, we give singular deference to a trial court’s judgments about the credibility of witnesses. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 52(a)(6). That is proper, we have explained, because the various cues that “bear so heavily on the listener’s understanding of and belief in what is said” are lost on an appellate court later sifting through a paper record. Anderson, 470 U. S., at 575.8 —————— 7 As earlier noted, that inquiry is satisfied when legislators have “place[d] a significant number of voters within or without” a district predominantly because of their race, regardless of their ultimate objective in taking that step. See supra, at 2, and n. 1. So, for example, if legislators use race as their predominant districting criterion with the end goal of advancing their partisan interests—perhaps thinking that a proposed district is more “sellable” as a race-based VRA compliance measure than as a political gerrymander and will accomplish much the same thing—their action still triggers strict scrutiny. See Vera, 517 U. S., at 968–970 (plurality opinion). In other words, the sorting of voters on the grounds of their race remains suspect even if race is meant to function as a proxy for other (including political) characteristics. See Miller, 515 U. S., at 914. 8 Undeterred by these settled principles, the dissent undertakes to refind the facts of this case at every turn. See post, at 11–33. Indeed, the dissent repeatedly flips the appropriate standard of review— arguing, for example, that the District Court’s is not “the only plausible interpretation” of one piece of contested evidence and that the State offered an “entirely natural” view of another. Post, at 24, 31; see also post, at 20, 26, 27, 33. Underlying that approach to the District Court’s factfinding is an elemental error: The dissent mistakes the rule that a