Donald Trump has thrown in the towel, although he won’t say he did.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the administration’s effort to ask U.S. residents a citizenship question, meaning that respondents were not going to be asked to prove whether they are citizens of this country.

Trump wanted to add that proviso to the census-taking that is scheduled to occur in 2020. He had threatened to include it on the form to be sent out.

Well, now the president has said he won’t do it. There will be no citizenship question to be posed to U.S. residents.

That means tradition has been upheld. The prospect of serious undercounting of U.S. residents has been reduced, if not virtually eliminated, by the president’s decision to back off his initial threat to seek citizenship answers.

The Commerce Department led the charge for the Trump administration. As Roll Call reported: The retreat follows the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision last week, which it based on objections to the Commerce Department’s reasoning for adding the question. President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to delay the census to get the question approved.

The court didn’t like the way the administration sought to explain its reason for adding the question. So it handed the president a defeat.

He won’t acknowledge the loss at the hands of a court that he thinks leans strongly in his direction. That’s fine, as long as the justices’ ruling holds up. Which it will.