RALEIGH, N.C. — When North Carolina Republican lawmakers release their new map of congressional districts, it’s expected to yield a much stronger partisan advantage for the GOP — a move that could help the party retain or strengthen control in the U.S. House.
GOP state lawmakers who initially redrew the map in 2021 gave the GOP a 10-4 or 11-3 advantage. The new map, expected to be released and debated this week, could more closely resemble that balance in the 2024 elections, likely sending several Democrats packing.
Voting rights groups challenged the congressional districts Republicans proposed in 2021, arguing they were so lopsidedly partisan that they essentially diluted Democrats’ votes, packing many into as few districts as possible and “cracking” the rest among various Republican-leaning districts.
In the 2022 election, North Carolina voters elected two more Republicans to the Supreme Court, giving the GOP control of the court. There are now five Republicans and two Democrats on the bench.
In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court also ruled that it has no authority over partisan gerrymandering. So North Carolina lawmakers are entering this redistricting cycle with free rein to draw districts that are as politically advantageous as possible, provided they comply with federal and state laws that promote some balance, contiguity and forbid racial gerrymandering.
On the hot seat
The most likely North Carolina Democrats to see their districts retooled to favor Republicans or subsumed into other districts are U.S. Reps. Jeff Jackson in District 14 (Charlotte), Wiley Nickel in District 13 (southern Wake/Johnston counties), and Kathy Manning in District 6 (Greensboro).
Districts 13 and 14 were created by the independent experts, also known as “special masters,” who drew the 2022 maps approved by the state Supreme Court. They didn’t really correspond to any districts GOP legislators had proposed.
Both could easily be redrawn to favor the GOP. And both Nickel and Jackson are former state senators serving their first terms in Congress, so neither has had time to build up a lot of name recognition.
District 6 was created in 2019 after a state court agreed with challengers that Republican lawmakers had impermissibly used partisan gerrymandering in their 2016 redraw.
Manning won the seat in 2020. Republican lawmakers proposed splitting up the district in 2021, but the final court-ordered 2022 map kept it whole. It’s likely to be in the crosshairs again this fall.
In past maps, cracking District 6 has divided the Greensboro/High Point community. One map split the campus of the state’s largest historically black university, North Carolina A&T State, into two districts.
Some voting rights activists argued at the time that the strategy intentionally targeted Black and young voters. Republican leaders countered that the split was better for NC A&T because it gave the school two representatives in the U.S. House, rather than one.
Looking safe
The likeliest North Carolina Democrats to return to Washington after 2024 are U.S. Reps. Alma Adams in District 12 (Charlotte), Valerie Foushee in District 4 (Durham/Chapel Hill), and Deborah Ross in District 2 (Wake).
Republican mapmakers could try to split up the Democratic votes in those districts, but those areas are so solidly blue that “cracking” those districts would likely make it harder for Republicans to win in surrounding districts.
A fourth Democrat, Don Davis in District 1 (northeastern NC), is expected to return to Congress as well. District 1 has been a majority-Black district in North Carolina for more than a century. Davis’s predecessor in the seat was Rep. G. K. Butterfield, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.
As currently drawn, District 1 is very competitive, favoring Democrats by only two points. It would be easy to make it more Republican-friendly. However, doing so could unseat Davis, one of only three Black members in North Carolina’s 14-member U.S. House delegation.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of Black voters in Alabama who argued Republican lawmakers drew congressional districts to decrease minority representation. After the Alabama ruling, Republican mapmakers in NC may not want to risk a similar federal challenge in District 1.
Why it matters
North Carolina voters are accustomed to finding themselves randomly voting for different members of Congress. Next year will be the state’s fourth congressional election out of the past five to feature brand-new district maps.
The stakes are higher than usual this year. With a razor-slim GOP majority in the U.S. House, Republican lawmakers in the state will be under more pressure to flip as many Democratic seats to the GOP as they can.