The Supreme Court has been helpful to President Donald Trump and his Republican Party, including when it comes to gaining electoral advantages. But the justices’ swift rejection Monday night of the administration’s bid to meddle with California’s ballots is a reminder that this court has its limits.

The election-eve rejection was notable on multiple fronts: for its speed, for its apparent unanimity and, perhaps most of all, for the court not even asking the Democratic-led state to respond to the Justice Department’s application before denying it. The court did not take the Department of Justice’s urgent request seriously in any way.

The administration wanted to sequester thousands of ballots from voters it claimed to have “identified as likely noncitizens.” Lower courts had declined the request, questioning both its constitutionality and its factual reliability. The high court’s refusal to intervene continued the administration’s losing streak.

That it did so without even asking to hear from the opposing party, as it typically does before acting, bolstered the message the justices sent with their unexplained order denying the application on the same day it was filed. The message is that the court stands ready to refuse the administration’s most extreme asks in connection with the midterm elections.

To be sure, this is the same court whose majority earlier this year helped the GOP in the midterms and beyond with its April ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which further weakened the Voting Rights Act. That ruling was not an aberration but rather was part of a long-term effort by Chief Justice John Roberts and his like-minded colleagues.

But while Monday’s order in the California case was striking, it was not the first legal loss for Trump or his party this election season.

Recall that in September, the court rejected the president’s desired mail ballot restrictions for the midterms (over dissent from Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito). Later that month, the court unanimously smacked down — for a third time — Missouri officials’ attempt to use a newly gerrymandered map after the state’s top court said they couldn’t do so. Allowing that new map while the election was already underway “would usher in electoral chaos,” the justices said in an opinion that effectively blocked Republicans from winning another congressional seat in the Trump-backed mid-decade redistricting push.

That the court has refused to help the GOP in a noteworthy handful of disputes — while still backing the party in other election cases — may merely highlight the radical nature of what those cases represented. Even so, the court refused to go along with them.

Although we don’t know how Election Day will turn out at the ballot box or in any further challenges that reach the court, Republicans who are fighting to maintain congressional control enter Tuesday with a warning from the justices that the president shouldn’t count on them to save him or his party in every case.

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