Cite as: 588 U. S. ____ (2019) 17 KAGAN, J., dissenting purpose of entrenching their own party in power? Here, the two District Courts catalogued the overwhelming direct evidence that they did. To remind you of some highlights, see supra, at 4–6: North Carolina’s redistricting committee used “Partisan Advantage” as an official criterion for drawing district lines. And from the first to the last, that committee’s chair (along with his mapmaker) acted to ensure a 10–3 partisan split, whatever the statewide vote, because he thought that “electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats.” For their part, Maryland’s Democrats—the Governor, senior Congressman, and State Senate President alike—openly admitted to a single driving purpose: flip the Sixth District from Republican to Democratic. They did not blanch from moving some 700,000 voters into new districts (when oneperson-one-vote rules required relocating just 10,000) for that reason and that reason alone. The majority’s response to the District Courts’ purpose analysis is discomfiting. The majority does not contest the lower courts’ findings; how could it? Instead, the majority says that state officials’ intent to entrench their party in power is perfectly “permissible,” even when it is the predominant factor in drawing district lines. Ante, at 23. But that is wrong. True enough, that the intent to inject “political considerations” into districting may not raise any constitutional concerns. In Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U. S. 735 (1973), for example, we thought it nonproblematic when state officials used political data to ensure rough proportional representation between the two parties. And true enough that even the naked purpose to gain partisan advantage may not rise to the level of constitutional notice when it is not the driving force in mapmaking or when the intended gain is slight. See Vieth, 541 U. S., at 286 (plurality opinion). But when political actors have a specific and predominant intent to entrench themselves in power by manipulating district lines, that goes