‘Racist Maps Make Racist Reps’: North Carolina Advances GOP’s Latest Gerrymander

President Donald Trump’s effort to rig the 2026 election spread to another GOP-controlled state Monday as North Carolina lawmakers advanced a gerrymandered map, clearing the way for a floor vote.

Ahead of the vote, North Carolina voters were escorted out of the hearing after reportedly chanting: “Racist maps make racist reps.” 

State Sen. Ralph Hise (R) introduced the proposal at Monday’s Senate elections committee meeting, putting forward a plan that targets District 1, which is currently represented by Rep. Don Davis, a Black Democrat.

“The motivation behind this redraw is simple and singular. Draw a new map that will bring an additional Republican seat to the North Carolina congressional delegation,” Hise said during the Senate committee hearing. “Republicans hold a razor-thin margin in the United States House of Representatives and if Democrats flip four seats in the upcoming midterm elections, they will take control of the House and torpedo President Trump’s agenda.”

Under Hise’s map, District 1 would have given Trump 55% of the vote in 2024, making it a GOP-leaning seat.

Hise’s map moves some Black voters out of District 1 and into District 3, lowering District 1’s Black voting age population from 40% of the district down to 32%, while increasing District 3’s Black population by the same amount, according to analysis from Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. Some areas from District 3 are then swapped into District 1 to maintain an even distribution of voters.

Trump endorsed the plan Friday, posting on his Truth Social platform: “Thank you to North Carolina’s incredible Republican State Legislators, who just introduced a new, fair, and improved Congressional Map, a situation I am watching, and strongly supporting, very closely.” 

North Carolina would be the third GOP-controlled state to pass a gerrymander this year amid pressure from Trump, after Texas and Missouri redrew their maps.

North Carolina – a purple state that chose Trump for president and a Democrat for governor in 2024 – elected an evenly split 7-7 congressional delegation as recently as 2022. But after the new GOP-majority North Carolina Supreme Court legalized partisan gerrymandering in 2023, the delegation is now 10-4. Under the Hise proposal, it likely would be 11-3 in 2026. 

When Democratic senators pressed Hise about the map, he claimed he drew it himself last week, just three days before it was released to the public. 

He said he used no racial data to draw the map, and he denied working directly with the White House on the plan.

“I have had no direct communication with the White House or others,” Hise said.

Asked if North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger (R) had spoken with the White House, Hise said he couldn’t speak to other people’s communications.

Hise claimed North Carolina needed to pass a new gerrymander because of California’s map redraw. But Democrats noted that California redrew its congressional map in response to a gerrymander passed by Texas lawmakers in August. 

“Let’s just do away with the fiction that California has started this process,” State Sen. Julie Mayfield (D) told Hise. “They have not. Everybody in the country knows that. And it is frankly shocking to me that the intelligent and thoughtful Republicans that I work with continue to perpetuate this fiction.”

Democrats also pointed out that California voters will get the final say on their maps, while North Carolina voters will not. 

Despite Trump’s support for the plan, gerrymandering is deeply unpopular with North Carolina voters. In a new survey of nearly 700 North Carolina registered voters, 83.9% of respondents said it was “very important” that voting districts fairly represent communities and 76.3% said partisan gerrymandering should be illegal.

Ron Osborn, a North Carolinian farmer, spoke to the committee, criticizing GOP lawmakers for drawing a map that he said would have the same voter disenfranchisement impacts as poll taxes and literacy tests. 

“Frankly, the manure is deeper in here than in my barnyard,” Osborn said. “The non-answers, the half-truths and the outright lies about the intent of this bill is disgusting.”