Thomas, J., dissenting
benchmark. All that might follow is that the illustrative maps were reasonably configured—in other words, that they were consistent with some reasonable application of traditional districting criteria in which race did not predominate. See LULAC, 548 U. S., at 433. But, in virtually all jurisdictions, there are countless possible districting schemes that could be considered reasonable in that sense. The mere fact that a plaintiff’s illustrative map is one of them cannot justify making it the benchmark against which other plans should be judged. Cf. Rucho, 588 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 19–20) (explaining the lack of judicially manageable standards for evaluating the relative fairness of different applications of traditional districting criteria).
That conceptual gap—between “reasonable” and “benchmark”—is highly relevant here. Suppose, for argument’s sake, that Alabama reasonably could decide to create two majority-black districts by (1) connecting Montgomery’s black residents with Mobile’s black residents, (2) dividing up the rural parts of the Black Belt between that district and another district with its population core in the majority-black parts of the Birmingham area, and (3) accepting the extreme disruption to District 1 and the Gulf Coast that this approach would require. The plaintiffs prefer that approach because it allows the creation of two majority-black districts, which they think Alabama should have. But even if that approach were reasonable, there is hardly any compelling race-neutral reason to elevate such a plan to a benchmark against which all other plans must be measured. Nothing in Alabama’s geography or demography makes it clearly the best way, or even a particularly attractive way, to draw three of seven equally populous districts. The State has obvious legitimate, race-neutral reasons to prefer its own map—most notably, its interest in “preserving the cores of prior districts” and the Gulf Coast community of interest in District 1. Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 740 (1983). And even discounting those interests
