Democrats are likely to pick up a House seat in Utah under new congressional lines adopted by a state judge, the latest win for the party in its mid-decade redistricting battle against Republicans.
State District Judge Dianna M. Gibson approved a map submitted by voting rights groups that creates one strongly Democratic district within populous Salt Lake County and rejected a proposal from the Republican legislature that would have continued to favor the GOP in all four House districts.
The legislature’s map is “an extreme partisan outlier” that “unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats,” Gibson wrote in her opinion.
The ...