Republican state senators in North Carolina approved a new congressional map on Tuesday to further favor their party and help the Trump administration’s efforts to retain control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections next year.
The new map would likely give Republicans an extra House seat. The State Senate approved it just over a week after Phil Berger, the chamber’s leader, and Destin Hall, the speaker of the State House of Representatives, said in a joint statement that they were taking action to protect President Trump’s agenda and safeguard Republican control of Congress.
The state House of Representatives is likely to approve the new map later this week. Republicans currently hold large majorities in both chambers, and Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, cannot veto redistricting plans, per the State Constitution.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Berger shared a post on X celebrating the new map, along with a photo of him and Mr. Trump smiling side by side.
“North Carolina Republicans will not sit quietly and watch Democrats continue to ignore the will of the people in an attempt to force their liberal agenda on our citizens,” he wrote.
Democrats decried the move as a shameless power grab, and protesters at a rally outside the State Capitol building on Tuesday held signs that read “cheaters.”
The redistricting plan has received significant criticism in the state and across the country, partly because of North Carolina’s political identity: It is still considered a swing state with an almost evenly divided electorate, but that is hard to glean from its already heavily gerrymandered map, which was approved by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2023.
Republicans already have control of 10 of the state’s 14 congressional seats. The new map could give them an extra seat in the First Congressional District, which previously included all eight of the state’s majority Black counties and has now been redrawn to include more conservative-leaning counties. The district is currently held by Representative Don Davis, a Democrat.
“Many from across eastern North Carolina, including both Democrats and Republicans, have reached out to me to make it clear that they are not asking for a new congressional map,” Mr. Davis said in a statement. “They believe that this fundamentally goes against our core values and would undermine everything we stand for.”
North Carolina’s new map could face legal challenges rooted in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to weaken a key provision of the landmark civil rights law, by sharply limiting the ability of lawmakers to use race as a factor in drawing voting maps.
The proposed redrawing in North Carolina comes as the Trump administration has pushed Republican-led states to redraw House district maps to strengthen his party’s majority in the chamber before the midterm elections. That effort took off over the summer in Texas, at the urging of Gov. Greg Abbott. Lawmakers there approved a map that could give Republicans up to five more seats in the U.S. House.
In response to Texas’ actions, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, pressed his state’s Legislature to approve a new map that could flip as many as five Republican-held House seats to favor Democrats. That map requires the approval of California voters in November.
Since then, other states, including Missouri and Indiana, have either taken part in gerrymandering or threatened to do so before 2026.
Representative Dante Pittman, a Democrat, said his constituents in Wilson County, about 50 miles east of Raleigh, would be shifted into a new congressional district because of the new map.
“This is bringing more division locally,” Mr. Pittman said. “We’ve heard the argument that this has to be done to protect President Trump’s agenda. Well, that’s not for legislators to do — that’s for the people to decide.”
Mr. Trump praised the Republican lawmakers in a social media post on Friday, before the State Senate approved the new map, saying that securing an additional Republican seat would amount to “a huge victory” for his agenda.
The timing of Mr. Berger’s willingness to engage in redistricting has raised eyebrows in North Carolina. He is in a contentious and possibly close primary race for re-election against a popular sheriff, Sam Page. Mr. Berger has denied claims that the redistricting plans are part of a deal to secure Mr. Trump’s endorsement.
Governor Stein denounced the redistricting move last week, saying at a news conference that Republicans were “abusing their power to take away the people’s power, the voters’ power.”
“This is a General Assembly, one of only two in the entire country, that has not yet passed a budget,” Mr. Stein said. He added that Republicans were “failing the voters by taking away their authority to choose their own elected representative.”
Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C.
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