Cite as: 588 U. S. ____ (2019) 5 KAGAN, J., dissenting lican congressional candidates won 10 of North Carolina’s 13 seats, with 53% of the statewide vote. Two years later, Republican candidates won 9 of 12 seats though they received only 50% of the vote. (The 13th seat has not yet been filled because fraud tainted the initial election.) Events in Maryland make for a similarly grisly tale. For 50 years, Maryland’s 8-person congressional delegation typically consisted of 2 or 3 Republicans and 5 or 6 Democrats. After the 2000 districting, for example, the First and Sixth Districts reliably elected Republicans, and the other districts as reliably elected Democrats. See R. Cohen & J. Barnes, Almanac of American Politics 2016, p. 836 (2015). But in the 2010 districting cycle, the State’s Democratic leaders, who controlled the governorship and both houses of the General Assembly, decided to press their advantage.  Governor Martin O’Malley, who oversaw the process, decided (in his own later words) “to create a map that was more favorable for Democrats over the next ten years.” Because flipping the First District was geographically next-to-impossible, “a decision was made to go for the Sixth.” Benisek v. Lamone, 348 F. Supp. 3d 493, 502 (Md. 2018) (quoting O’Malley; emphasis deleted).  O’Malley appointed an advisory committee as the public face of his effort, while asking Congressman Steny Hoyer, a self-described “serial gerrymanderer,” to hire and direct a mapmaker. Id., at 502. Hoyer retained Eric Hawkins, an analyst at a political consulting firm providing services to Democrats. See id., at 502–503.  Hawkins received only two instructions: to ensure that the new map produced 7 reliable Democratic