RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina's Republican legislative leaders completed their remapping of the state's U.S. House districts on Wednesday, intent on picking up one more seat for President Donald Trump's push to retain GOP control of Congress in next year's midterm elections.
The boundaries approved by the state House aim to thwart the reelection of Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis, an African American who currently represents more than 20 northeastern counties in what's been the state's only swing seat. The state Senate already approved the plan in a similar party-line vote Tuesday.
Republicans hold majorities in both General Assembly chambers, and Democratic Gov. Josh Stein cannot veto redistricting maps under state law. So the GOP’s lines can now be implemented unless anticipated litigation by Democrats or voting rights advocates stops them. Candidate filing for 2026 is scheduled to begin Dec. 1.
Republican lawmakers made crystal clear that their proposed changes answer Trump’s call for GOP-led states to secure more seats for the party nationwide, so that Congress can continue advancing his agenda. Democrats have responded with rival moves in blue states. A president’s party historically loses seats in midterm elections, and Democrats currently need to gain just three more seats to flip House control.
“The new congressional map improves Republican political strength in eastern North Carolina and will bring in an additional Republican seat to North Carolina’s congressional delegation,” GOP Rep. Brenden Jones said during a debate that Republicans cut off after about an hour.
Black Democratic state Rep. Gloristine Brown accused mapmakers of purposefully diluting African American votes in her region with the plan.
“North Carolina is a testing ground for the new era of Jim Crow laws,” Brown said. “You are silencing Black voices and are going against the will of your constituents.”
North Carolina the latest state in remapping battle
Republican-led Texas and Missouri revised their maps. Democrats then asked California voters to approve a map in their favor. Jones accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of ramping up the redistricting fight.
“We will not let outsiders tell us how to govern, and we will never apologize for doing exactly what the people of this state has elected us to do,” Jones said.
By exchanging several counties in Davis’ current district with another coastal district, Republicans have calculated based on election data that they can increase their dominance from holding 10 of the state's 14 House seats to 11, in a state where Trump got 51% of the popular vote in 2024 and statewide elections are often close.
District altered has elected Black lawmakers for decades
Davis is one of North Carolina’s three Black representatives. Map critics argue this latest GOP map should be sued over as an illegal racial gerrymander in a district that has included several majority Black counties, electing African Americans to the U.S. House continuously since 1992.
“It is morally reprehensible and legally indefensible — and it will be challenged in court,” former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who heads the national Democratic Party's redistricting efforts, said in a news release.
Republicans countered that the redrawing was based not on race but on gaining political advantage, an allowable aim based on recent federal and state court decisions.
Davis won in district that also chose Trump
Davis, a political moderate, was already vulnerable — he won his second term by less than 2 percentage points, and the 1st District was one of 13 nationwide where both Trump and a Democratic House member was elected last year, according to the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Davis on Tuesday called the replacement map “beyond the pale.” He still plans to run in 2026 if the map stands, his campaign spokesperson confirmed Wednesday — either in the 1st or the adjoining 3rd District represented by GOP Rep. Greg Murphy, a district also altered in the legislation.
Hundreds of Democratic and liberal activists swarmed the legislative complex this week and accused GOP legislators of doing Trump’s bidding through a speedy and unfair redistricting process.
During Wednesday’s debate, General Assembly police cleared the House gallery of dozens of protesters who disrupted the proceedings.
State GOP leaders say Trump won North Carolina all three times that he’s run for president and thus merits more GOP support in Congress. Senate leader Phil Berger called it appropriate "under the law and in conjunction with basically listening to the will of the people.”
Stein said in a video released Wednesday that passing the map was “disgraceful” and he would veto it if he could.
House Minority Leader Robert Reives warned Republican colleagues that one day they'd be targeted by the same Trump-backed GOP that's going after Davis should they fail to toe the party line.
"Mark this day because one day they’re coming to you, they’re going to ask you to do something that you just can’t do,” Reives said. “And because we have set the precedent that only one person in the party matters, you’re going home.”
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Associated Press writer David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri, contributed to this report.