North Carolina Republicans rally behind Trump

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Republican legislative leaders announced plans Monday to vote next week on redrawing the state’s U.S. House district map, answering President Donald Trump’s call to secure more Republican seats across the country and resist rival moves by Democrats.

The push to redraw already right-leaning boundaries for the ninth-largest state comes amid a major, multistate partisan battle to redraw district lines to gain a partisan advantage ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

North Carolina Republicans created a map in 2023 that resulted in GOP candidates winning 10 of the state’s 14 U.S. House seats in 2024. That compares to a 7-7 seat split between Democrats and Republicans on the map used in 2022.

Now only one of the House districts – the 1st District currently represented by Democratic Rep. Don Davis – is considered a true swing district and could be the GOP’s target for an 11th seat. Davis won a second term last year by less than 2 percentage points, so slightly flipping parts of the district that covers more than 20 northeastern counties could help a Republican candidate in a strong Republican year. But it could weaken districts controlled by Republican incumbents.

The state’s top Republican lawmakers said their planned action follows Trump’s “call urging legislatures across the country to take action to overturn Democratic redistricting efforts.” Davis was not mentioned by name in his press release.

AP Photo/Gary D. Robertson, File

Trump “earned a clear mandate from voters in North Carolina and the rest of the country, and we intend to defend it by winning an additional Republican seat in Congress,” House Speaker Destin Hall said in the statement. Trump has won North Carolina’s electoral votes all three times he has been on the presidential ballot.

But state House Democratic leader Robert Reives said Monday that his Republican colleagues “are stealing a congressional district to protect themselves from liability at the polls.”

Redistricting fight started in Texas, then spread

Trump fueled the national redistricting battle over the summer by urging Republican-led Texas to redraw its U.S. House districts so the GOP could gain more seats next year. After overcoming a Democratic walkout, Texas lawmakers redrawn districts to give Republicans a chance to gain five more seats.

California Democrats reciprocated by approving their own redistricting plan aimed at helping their party gain five additional seats, a plan that needs voter approval in November to be implemented.

And lawmakers in Republican-led Missouri approved revised districts in the U.S. House of Representatives aimed at helping Republicans gain an additional seat there. Other states are also considering redistricting, including Republican-led Indiana and Kansas.

Some North Carolina Republican lawmakers focused their complaints Monday on California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who moved forward with his state’s redistricting effort.

“Continuing where Texas left off, we will hold votes in our October session to redraw North Carolina’s congressional map and ensure that Gavin Newsom does not decide the congressional majority,” said Senate Leader Phil Berger.

In response to

The Democratic governor lacks veto power in the districts

North Carolina lawmakers had already planned a multi-day session starting Oct. 20. Republicans have a majority in both chambers of the General Assembly and redistricting plans are not subject to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s veto stamp. Filing for 2026 candidates is supposed to begin on December 1.

Addressing voters, Stein said in a statement that “brazen politicians are abusing their power to take away yours” with a new lottery.

An intensely competitive midterm election looms in which Democrats need to gain just three seats to take control of the House. The president’s party has historically lost seats in midterm elections, something Trump is trying to avoid. A Democratic takeover could hamper Trump’s agenda and lead to investigations into his actions, as occurred during his first term.

Litigation could disrupt and derail some map changes

Whether and how North Carolina lawmakers create a new, more favorable draw may depend on pending litigation filed by the state NAACP, Common Cause and voters contesting several current congressional districts, including the one represented by Davis, one of North Carolina’s three black representatives. The plaintiffs accuse Republican lawmakers of racially discriminating against black voters by dividing or grouping their voting blocs to help Republican candidates win. The trial ended in July without an immediate ruling.

Districts for the United States House of Representatives are typically redrawn once every decade, after a census. But some states have no prohibition on doing it more frequently. And the U.S. Supreme Court has said there is no federal ban on gerrymandering, in which districts are intentionally drawn to favor one party.

Opponents have filed lawsuits alleging that Texas’ latest redistricting unconstitutionally dilutes the votes of minority residents and that Missouri’s mid-decade redistricting is not permitted by the state constitution. Meanwhile, the Republican-led Utah Legislature recently endorsed a reworked congressional map, though in response to a court order, not Trump’s demands.

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This story has been corrected to show that North Carolina’s 1st District covers more than 20 counties, not less than 20.

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News writers David Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri, and Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report.