WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday denied an effort to overturn California’s new voter-passed congressional map, letting the map go into effect for this year’s midterm elections.

The unexplained, unsigned order ends a bid from the Trump administration and California Republicans to overturn a lower court ruling that found the state’s new congressional map was likely not an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

Wednesday’s order means the state will be able to use the new map — which targets five seats currently held by Republicans — in November.

California was the second state to enter the nationwide partisan mid-decade redistricting arms race after the Texas Legislature passed its own partisan map last summer targeting five seats held by Democrats there.

California’s legislature then set up a ballot measure to override the state’s independent redistricting commission and adopt a new map to target five Republican-held districts. That ballot measure passed in November with more than 60% of the vote.

The map’s challengers, which included the state Republican party and the Trump administration, argued that mapmakers illegally prioritized the drawing of Hispanic and Latino communities in the new lines. That included increasing the share of Hispanic and Latino voters in one district in the state’s Central Valley.

A 2-1 majority of a three-judge lower court disagreed with those allegations, finding the evidence there “exceptionally weak” in a ruling last month The legal procedure used to challenge the map, which included going before the three-judge panel, allowed the direct appeal to the Supreme Court.

Map challengers then asked the Supreme Court to overrule that panel decision and keep the state from using the new map this year.

California and the map’s defenders argued that lawmakers intended the new map as a partisan, not racial, gerrymander, and overturning the map now would unleash chaos on the state’s ongoing primary process.

The unexplained ruling did not elaborate on how the justices may rule on the case in the future, as it only denied the request to overturn the lower court ruling in advance of this year’s election.

The case came months after the Supreme Court separately ruled allowing Texas to use its redrawn map for this fall’s elections. In that case, the court’s conservative justices overturned a lower court ruling finding the state’s new map was likely an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

There are still pending court cases about congressional redistricting in several other states, including in state courts in New York and Virginia.

The California case is David Tangipa, et al. v. Gavin Newsom, et al.

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