Analysis: NC's evenly-split congressional delegation is likely to turn red. These Dems could be drawn out
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.
North Carolina’s 14-seat congressional delegation is currently split, with seven Democrats and seven Republicans — the result of court-ordered districts in the wake of legal challenges over a skewed congressional map that favored Republicans.
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 Wednesday and debated later 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.
The North Carolina Supreme Court, made up of four Democrats and three Republicans at the time, ruled along party lines in 2022 that the level of partisan gerrymandering in the map violated the state constitutional right to free elections. They ruled that lawmakers should draw districts more representative of the partisan split of the electorate. The court ultimately approved a map drawn by independent experts for the 2022 election. Expected challenges to Republicans’ newest map might not have the same judicial support.
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.
Weeks after it was sworn in, Republicans on the court took the unusual step of rehearing the case and vacating its 2022 decision, ruling instead that the state’s high court has no power to limit partisan gerrymandering.
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. For decades, District 1 has had a high percentage of Black voters who have typically elected Black congressmen. 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.
