The Republican-controlled North Carolina Legislature approved a new congressional map that aims to further boost the party ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
The state House on Wednesday approved the map, which could give Republicans an additional U.S. House seat in North Carolina, in a 66-48 vote, one day after the state Senate advanced it and nine days after GOP legislative leaders announced plans for a vote.
“The motivation behind this redesign is simple and singular: draw a new map that will bring one additional Republican seat to North Carolina’s congressional delegation,” state Sen. Ralph Hise, the Republican who drew up the map, told colleagues this week at a committee hearing.
North Carolina 1street The district, which narrowly supported President Donald Trump in the 2024 election and is represented by Democratic Rep. Don Davis, would become more Republican-friendly under the new lines, with the nearby 3third The district absorbs some new Democratic areas. Republicans currently control 10 of the state’s 14 districts.
The map, which Democratic Gov. Josh Stein does not have the power to veto, will now go into effect ahead of the 2026 elections, when Republicans will seek to protect their slim majority in the House.
In committee hearings this week, Democrats and members of the public protested the new map, arguing that it diluted the political power of Black and Latino voters to achieve Republican goals.
Protesters called them “racist maps” at the end of the public comment period of a House committee hearing Tuesday afternoon, as they were escorted out for disrupting the proceedings.
“There was no need to use racial data because every member of this body knows the black population in the northeastern part of this state,” state Rep. Gloristine Brown said on the House floor Wednesday.
Of 11,000 public comments submitted to a state House committee, Democratic state Rep. Pricey Harrison said Tuesday that her legislative help could find only three comments in support.
“I’m so angry about what we’re doing to our democracy today that it’s hard for me to contain myself,” Harrison said.
North Carolina is just the latest state where Republican lawmakers have heeded Trump’s call for an aggressive redistricting effort by mid-decade. Trump praised North Carolina’s “improved” map last week on Truth Social, saying it would “give the fantastic people of North Carolina the opportunity to elect an additional MAGA Republican in the 2026 midterm elections.”
In August, Texas lawmakers approved a new map designed to give Republicans five additional House seats. A month later, Missouri Republicans followed suit with a map that made Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s district a Republican-leaning district.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in Kansas and Indiana are considering drawing new district lines. And GOP-controlled Ohio must draw new lines this year after passing its latest map without Democratic support.
Democrats’ most notable effort to counter it comes in California, where voters will decide whether to approve a map that could allow the party to gain five seats in the House of Representatives in the Nov. 4 vote. Democratic lawmakers in Maryland and Illinois are also discussing possible redistricting efforts.
