North Carolina lawmakers approved a new Republican-drawn congressional map Oct. 22 that could give Republicans another pickup opportunity in the 2026 midterm elections.
The map, passed by the Senate earlier this week, redraws District 1, which is currently held by Democratic Rep. Don Davis, who narrowly won reelection in 2024 by less than 2%, ABC7 reported. The new lines are expected to make Davis’ seat significantly harder to defend.
House Majority Leader Brenden Jones, a Republican, said the new map strengthens Republicans’ standing in eastern North Carolina while adhering to traditional redistricting principles.
“The motivation behind this map is straightforward,” Jones said, according to ABC7. “It moves NC-1 from a district where President Trump won 51% of the vote in 2024 to 55% of the vote, an increase of four points. An end result is a Congressional map that should perform to elect 11 Republicans.”
Despite Republicans’ insistence that the redrawn map is well within the bounds of the law, Democrats have argued it amounts to racial gerrymandering.
In an Oct. 22 statement, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., called it an “extreme gerrymandered map” that was “clearly drawn to dilute the voting power of Black voters by dismantling the Black Belt to stop North Carolinians from holding Trump and House Republicans accountable for ignoring the needs of hardworking Americans.”
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, condemned the new map in a video statement on X and said he would veto it “if I had the power.” The state’s constitution prevents governors from vetoing redistricting plans.
House Speaker Destin Hall, a Republican, defended the map, saying it was drawn in the same way “that we’ve done redistricting in this state for about 250 years,” ABC7 reported.
The North Carolina overhaul mirrors similar efforts in other GOP-led states. Texas approved a map in August that is expected to add five GOP House seats, while Missouri passed one last month likely to deliver an additional seat, NBC News reported. Kansas and Indiana Republicans are reportedly pursuing their own redraws, and Ohio, which is largely GOP-controlled, is legally required to draw a new map this year.
Democrats, meanwhile, are looking to counter GOP gains. According to NBC, voters in California will decide Nov. 4 whether to approve a new map that could net Democrats up to five seats, while lawmakers in Maryland and Illinois are weighing their own redistricting pushes.
>> Supreme Court case could shift 19 House seats toward GOP <<
The post North Carolina GOP approves new congressional map, tightening grip ahead of midterms appeared first on CatholicVote org.