North Carolina Senate Approves Gerrymander Targeting Black Voters

By Jen Rice

North Carolina state Sen. Warren Daniel, R-Burke (left and standing), presides over the Senate Committee on Elections while it considers legislation to redraw the state’s U.S. House district map at the Legislative Office Building in Raleigh N.C., Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Gary D. Robertson)

The North Carolina Senate hastily passed a GOP gerrymander Tuesday in a 26-20 vote, advancing a proposed congressional map that aims to dismantle one of the state’s Black Democratic seats at the request of President Donald Trump.

The House redistricting committee is set to take up the measure Tuesday afternoon. 

North Carolina is the latest GOP-controlled state to bend the knee to Trump’s demands to redraw congressional seats in an effort to rig the 2026 election. Trump has endorsed the plan, which leaves most districts untouched while moving some Black voters out of District 1 and into District 3, creating a GOP-leaning seat that would have given Trump 55% of the vote in 2024.

As the Senate redistricting committee voted Monday to advance the gerrymander, members of the public blasted Republican leadership and were reportedly escorted out of the meeting for chanting “Racist maps make racist reps.”   

North Carolina elected an evenly split 7-7 congressional delegation as recently as 2022. That changed after the new GOP-majority North Carolina Supreme Court legalized partisan gerrymandering in 2023. The delegation is now 10-4. Under the proposed GOP map, it could be 11-3 in 2026. 

Rep. Don Davis, a Black Democrat who represents District 1, reportedly plans to run for either his current seat or District 3 in 2026.

“Since the start of this new term, my office has received 46,616 messages from constituents of different political parties, including those unaffiliated, expressing a range of opinions, views, and requests. Not a single one of them included a request for a new congressional map redrawing eastern North Carolina,” Davis said in a statement after the Senate vote. “Clearly, this new congressional map is beyond the pale.”

Two former District 1 representatives, Eva Clayton and G.K. Butterfield, both Democrats, will hold a press conference Tuesday afternoon to discuss how the gerrymander would impact the community.

State Sen. Ralph Hise (R), who claimed he drew the map himself, denied using racial data in the redraw and continued to blame blue states for North Carolina’s gerrymander.

“We came up with these maps for the purpose of rebalancing this nation, rebalancing Congress and making sure that North Carolina is as optimized as the other blue states were when they created their districts,” Hise said Tuesday.

State Sen. Julie Mayfield (D) pushed back on Hise’s argument, saying Trump’s sweeping national gerrymandering effort isn’t like other redraws. 

“What is different here is that state legislatures run by Republicans across the country are bowing to that request,” Mayfield said. “It is wrong, and you know it.”