A judge in Florida blocked an effort Tuesday to temporarily halt the use of a new Republican-favored House map, just hours after a federal judge blocked a similar effort in Tennessee.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the map into law earlier this month, after the Supreme Court ruled in a Louisiana redistricting case last month that the state's existing congressional map that includes an additional majority-black district violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

On Tuesday, Florida Circuit Court Judge Joshua Hawkes denied a request from several groups to pause the use of the new map designed to help Republicans win several more House seats in the November elections, ruling the plaintiffs failed to sufficiently prove the map was made with partisan intent and that it was too close to the election to make changes. 

“The primary is less than three months away, and the general less than six months," Hawkes wrote. "The public interest weighs more in favor of certainty than a haphazard judicial mandate of discarded maps."

The ruling comes just hours after U.S. Chief District Judge William L. Campbell Jr. denied a request from several black Memphis voters to temporarily halt the use of a new GOP-favored House map in Tennessee until a judicial panel could weigh the merits of their case.

Campbell ruled the plaintiffs might be able to show how discrimination was a motivating factor in creating the new House map, but he was skeptical of the arguments that Republicans redistricted a majority-black House district to retaliate against black voters.  

"Although the redistricting will unquestionably hamper Plaintiffs’ efforts to elect their candidate of choice and may result in voter apathy, the question of whether the alleged retaliatory action of redistricting would deter a person of ordinary firmness from engaging in First Amendment speech and association is less than certain,” the federal judge wrote. 

The plaintiffs in both cases are expected to appeal the rulings.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.