{"id":316682,"date":"2025-11-27T12:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T12:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/316682\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T12:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T12:12:10","slug":"judges-allow-a-north-carolina-map-that-could-flip-a-us-house-seat-to-the-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/316682\/","title":{"rendered":"Judges allow a North Carolina map that could flip a US House seat to the GOP"},"content":{"rendered":"

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 A federal three-judge panel on Wednesday allowed North Carolina to use a redrawn congressional map aimed at flipping a seat to Republicans as part of President Donald Trump\u2019s multistate redistricting campaign<\/a> ahead of the 2026 elections.<\/p>\n

The map targets the state\u2019s only swing seat, currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis<\/a>, an African American who represents more than 20 northeast counties. The 1st District has been represented by Black members of Congress continuously for more than 30 years.<\/p>\n

The three-judge panel unanimously denied preliminary injunction requests 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<\/a> that GOP state lawmakers initially enacted in 2023. They were first used in the 2024 elections, helping Republicans gain three more congressional seats. <\/p>\n

After Trump\u2019s push, Democrats\u2019 return fire<\/p>\n

Trump broke with more than a century of political tradition by directing the GOP in North Carolina and several other states this year to redraw maps at mid-decade \u2014 without courts requiring it \u2014 to avoid losing control of Congress in next year\u2019s midterms. <\/p>\n

Democrats need to pick up just a handful of seats to win control of the House and impede Trump\u2019s agenda. Besides North Carolina, Republican-led legislatures or commissions in Texas<\/a>, Missouri, and Ohio all have adopted new districts designed to boost Republicans\u2019 chances next year. <\/p>\n

In California, voters countered<\/a> by adopting new districts drawn to improve Democrats\u2019 chances of winning more seats. And the Democratic-led Virginia General Assembly also has taken a step toward redistricting with a proposed constitutional amendment.<\/p>\n

Thus far, many lower courts have blocked Trump\u2019s initiatives, only for the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court to put those rulings on hold<\/a>. That includes a recent ruling in Texas, where a redrawn U.S. House map was engineered to give Republicans five more House seats.<\/p>\n

North Carolina GOP seeks one-seat swing<\/p>\n

North Carolina\u2019s Republican-controlled General Assembly gave final approval<\/a> on Oct. 22 to the redrawn map. Democratic Gov. Josh Stein\u2019s approval wasn\u2019t needed.<\/p>\n

North Carolina Republican Senate leader Phil Berger said Wednesday\u2019s court decision \u201cthwarts the radical left\u2019s latest attempt to circumvent the will of the people\u201d in a state that voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Democrat-run states like California do everything in their power to undermine President Trump\u2019s administration and agenda, North Carolina Republicans went to work to protect the America First Agenda,\u201d Berger\u2019s statement said.<\/p>\n

But others called Wednesday\u2019s decision a bad one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis ruling gives blessing to what will be the most gerrymandered congressional map in state history, a map that intentionally retaliates against voters in eastern North Carolina for supporting a candidate not preferred by the majority party,\u201d said Bob Phillips, Executive Director of Common Cause North Carolina.<\/p>\n

The ruling covers two lawsuits.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s \u201cBlack Belt\u201d instead of Democratic-voting areas with higher white populations because in 2024 they organized and voted for their preferred candidates and had sued over the 2023 configuration of the district.<\/p>\n

In the second lawsuit, filed by voters, the case for a preliminary injunction rested in part on an argument that the use of five-year-old Census data due to the mid-decade redrawing of districts violates the Constitution, including the 14th Amendment\u2019s one-person, one-vote guarantee. Additionally, they said, mapmakers relied on race in violation of the First and 14th Amendments.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the Republican lawmakers argued that their map-drawing intentions were political and allowable, not racial, and were part of a \u201cnationwide partisan redistricting arms race.\u201d They rejected assertions about old Census data and retaliation over activities protected by the First Amendment, saying they don\u2019t align with Supreme Court precedent.<\/p>\n

Judges allow other districts from 2023 map<\/p>\n

Republicans now hold 10 of the state\u2019s 14 House seats \u2014 thanks to the 2023 map \u2014 and they hope to flip an 11th under the latest redrawing of the 1st District and the adjoining 3rd District. In North Carolina, Trump got 51% of the popular vote in 2024 and statewide elections are often close. Candidate filing for many 2026 North Carolina races begins Dec. 1.<\/p>\n

The latest challenge said the October map would drop the Black voting-age population in the 1st District from 40% in the 2023 map to 32%.<\/p>\n

Republicans in part moved counties in the 1st District with significant Black -\u2013 and usually highly Democratic -\u2013 populations to the 3rd District currently represented by Republican Greg Murphy. Recent election results indicate both the 1st and 3rd would favor Republicans.<\/p>\n

Many of the plaintiffs challenging the 1st District changes sued earlier over the 2023 House map, alleging that Republicans unlawfully diluted Black voting power. But judges dismissed those claims.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Mattise reported from Nashville, Tennessee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 A federal three-judge panel on Wednesday allowed North Carolina to use a redrawn congressional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,21283,2302,124947,12,1070,793,3138,162589,33204,3508,3,2256,107366,111,3766,12484,6013,1022,12202,1059,795,3438,21,9291,19,22,20,25,24,800],"class_list":["post-316682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-conservatism","tag-courts","tag-don-davis","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-general-news","tag-government-and-politics","tag-greg-murphy","tag-josh-stein","tag-nc-state-wire","tag-news","tag-north-carolina","tag-phil-berger","tag-politics","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-redistricting","tag-supreme-court-of-the-united-states","tag-texas","tag-trump-lawsuits","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-u-s-news","tag-u-s-republican-party","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-house-of-representatives","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}