Judges allow North Carolina to use drawn map in bid to give Republicans another seat in the US House of Representatives

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A three-judge federal panel on Wednesday allowed North Carolina to use a redrawn congressional map intended to give one seat to Republicans as part of President Donald Trump’s multistate redistricting campaign ahead of the 2026 election.

The map points to the state’s only undecided seat, currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis, an African American who represents more than 20 northeastern counties. The First District has been continuously represented by black members of Congress for more than 30 years.

The three-judge panel unanimously denied requests for preliminary injunctions after a hearing in Winston-Salem in mid-November. The day after the hearing, the same judges separately upheld several other redrawn U.S. House districts that Republican state lawmakers initially enacted in 2023. They were first used in the 2024 elections, helping Republicans gain three more seats in Congress.

After Trump’s push, Democrats return fire

Trump broke with more than a century of political tradition by ordering the Republican Party in North Carolina and several other states this year to redraw maps by mid-decade – without courts requiring it – to avoid losing control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

Democrats need to pick up just a handful of seats to win control of the House and thwart Trump’s agenda. In addition to North Carolina, Republican-led legislatures or commissions in Texas, Missouri and Ohio have adopted new districts designed to boost Republicans’ chances next year.

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In California, voters responded by adopting new districts designed to improve Democrats’ chances of winning more seats. And the Democratic-led Virginia General Assembly has also taken a step toward redistricting with a proposed constitutional amendment.

So far, many lower courts have blocked Trump’s initiatives, only to have those rulings stayed by the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. That includes a recent ruling in Texas, where a redrawn map of the U.S. House of Representatives was drawn to give Republicans five more House seats.

North Carolina GOP seeks seat flip

The Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly gave final approval on Oct. 22 to the redrawn map. Approval from Democratic Gov. Josh Stein was not necessary.

North Carolina Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger said Wednesday’s court decision “thwarts the radical left’s latest attempt to circumvent the will of the people” in a state that voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

“As Democrat-governed states like California do everything in their power to undermine President Trump’s administration and agenda, North Carolina Republicans went to work to protect the America First agenda,” Berger’s statement said.

But others called Wednesday’s decision bad.

“This ruling blesses what will be the most gerrymandered congressional map in state history, a map that intentionally retaliates against eastern North Carolina voters for supporting a candidate not preferred by the majority party,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause of North Carolina.

The ruling covers two claims.

One filed by the state NAACP, Common Cause, and voters sought a preliminary injunction on First Amendment grounds. They said Republican lawmakers unconstitutionally targeted North Carolina’s “black belt” instead of more white Democratic voting areas because in 2024 they organized and voted for their preferred candidates and had sued over the district’s shape for 2023.

In the second lawsuit, brought by voters, the case for a preliminary injunction rested in part on the argument that the use of five-year-old Census data due to mid-decade redistricting violates the Constitution, including the 14th Amendment’s one-person, one-vote guarantee. Furthermore, they said, the cartographers relied on race in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

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Lawyers for the Republican lawmakers argued that their intentions in drawing the map were political and permissible, not racial, and were part of a “national partisan arms race over redistricting.” They rejected the claims about old census data and retaliation for activities protected by the First Amendment, saying they do not align with Supreme Court precedent.

Judges allow other districts starting with the 2023 map

Republicans now hold 10 of the state’s 14 House seats, thanks to the 2023 map, and hope to pick up an 11th under the latest reshuffle of the 1st District and adjoining 3rd District. In North Carolina, Trump won 51% of the popular vote in 2024 and state elections are typically close. Candidate filing for many North Carolina races in 2026 begins December 1.

The latest challenge said the October map would reduce the black voting-age population in the 1st District from 40% on the 2023 map to 32%.

Republicans partly moved 1st District counties with significant black (and generally highly Democratic) populations to the 3rd District currently represented by Republican Greg Murphy. Recent election results indicate that both first and third place would favor Republicans.

Many of the plaintiffs challenging the First District changes filed an earlier lawsuit over the 2023 House map, alleging that Republicans illegally diluted Black voting power. But the judges dismissed those claims.

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Mattise reported from Nashville, Tennessee.