North Carolina Republicans announce plans to vote on a new congressional map

North Carolina Republican lawmakers announced plans Monday to redraw their state's congressional map, part of a nationwide redistricting effort aimed at shoring up the party's narrow majority in the U.S. House ahead of next year's midterm elections.

“President Trump earned a clear mandate from the voters of North Carolina and the rest of the country, and we intend to defend it by drawing an additional Republican Congressional seat,” North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall said in a statement.

Under North Carolina's current map, Republicans control 10 House seats to Democrats' four. To give Republicans another seat, the GOP-controlled Legislature could split another Democratic-leaning city between surrounding areas, just as state Republicans did by with Asheville several years ago.

In a joint statement, North Carolina’s Republican legislative leaders said they anticipate convening next week to consider a new map. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, does not have veto power over the maps.

The decision is the latest in an aggressive and unusual mid-decade redistricting cycle around the country. Redistricting typically occurs after once-a-decade Census results are released.

It started in Texas, when Trump successfully urged state Republicans to draw a new map that could net the party up to five new House seats. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers responded with new district lines designed to blunt the impact of Texas' map. The California map still needs to be approved by voters next month.

Hard to believe they can do much better than 10-4 (and 1 of those 4 D districts is very marginal already). So 11-3 at most, and that does not require any new map.

Anything better than 11-3 is:

1. Quite unrealistic

2. Likely to leave a few R districts dangerously marginal, i.e. the plan could easily backfire

Every single GOP-held district in the state is in the R+3 to R+8 range -- IOW none are *SO* solidly Republican that they couldn't flip in some "blue" wave election. Of course no election is likely to be so bad that they'd ALL flip. But we could easily lose 1 or 2, maybe more if 2028 turns out to be a repeat of Trump's last midterm debacle.

The 3 solid D districts in NC are D+19, D+24 and D+25. They are safer than safe. That's how gerrymandering works.

Any cheerleading about "we gonna screw dem to da wall now!" is way premature -- and the outcome may not be exactly what the uninformed desire, much to their surprise.

Any effort to "improve" the map comes with a risk.

Tl;dr for those with short attention spans: 11-3 is *possible* (and already is quite possible even without all the drama of a new map); 12-2 or better is not.

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