Redistricting

Can Republicans give themselves an extra Congressional seat in North Carolina without running the risk of making a safe GOP seat more competitive for Democrats?

N.C. Senate leader Phil Berger said Thursday that the legislature might redraw the state's Congressional districts in response to partisan gerrymandering efforts in other states.

In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court said a partisan redistricting case out of North Carolina raised a political, nonjusticiable question for federal courts, leaving the issue to states, their laws and their court systems to manage.

Advocacy groups and individual voters suing GOP state lawmakers in federal court claim Republican legislators drew racially discriminatory district maps.

North Carolina congressional and legislative districts drawn by Republicans in 2023 that helped them retain majorities in Raleigh and Washington are in court. A trial begins Monday in two federal lawsuits filed by voters and advocacy groups that accuse mapmakers of illegally eroding Black voting power while enacting lines that aided GOP electoral prospects.

North Carolina has five new members of Congress as the new session started Friday. They were sworn in after Mike Johnson was reelected as Speaker.

North Carolina trial judges have dismissed a lawsuit challenging redrawn legislative and congressional district lines on the argument that they run afoul of an indirect constitutional right to "fair elections." The judges wrote this week that a recent affirmation by the state Supreme Court that redistricting policy decisions are left to the General Assembly still applies.

The majority on a three-judge federal appeals court panel sounds hesitant to reverse a trial judge's refusal last month to block the use of two new North Carolina state Senate districts that have been challenged on racial bias claims.

New redistricting lines for the state legislature will mean few swing districts in November’s general election — most districts strongly favor either Democrats or Republicans. In some of those districts, the action will be taking place in the March primary.

Five new members of Congress will likely be chosen in the Republican primary, since the districts make it nearly impossible for a Democrat to win in them in November.