North Carolina’s political landscape is once again at the center of a fierce national debate, as Republican lawmakers move swiftly to finalize a new congressional map that critics say would upend decades of progress for Black and rural voters in the state’s northeast. The plan, which advanced through the Senate on October 21, 2025, in a 26-20 vote and is expected to clear the House imminently, has drawn sharp rebukes from community leaders, civil rights advocates, and Democratic officials who argue it is a blatant effort to dilute minority voting power and secure additional seats for the GOP in Washington.
At the heart of the controversy is North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, a swing seat with deep historical significance. For over three decades, it has been represented by Black Democrats, including Eva Clayton, the first Black person elected to the U.S. House from North Carolina since the late 19th century, as well as the late Frank Ballance, G.K. Butterfield, and current Rep. Don Davis. The new map, however, would shift thousands of Black voters out of District 1 and into District 3, transforming the area into a GOP-leaning seat that would have handed Donald Trump 55% of the vote in the 2024 presidential election, according to Democracy Docket.
Republican leaders have made no secret of their motivations. As Sen. Ralph Hise (R-Mitchell) explained, the redistricting is a "simple and singular" attempt to maintain GOP control in Congress. “Republicans hold a razor-thin margin in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Hise said during debate, according to NC Newsline. “And if Democrats flip four seats in the upcoming midterm elections, they will take control of the House and torpedo President Trump’s agenda.” Hise further insisted that “no racial data” was used in drawing the new map, emphasizing its partisan—rather than racial—intent.
Yet opponents see the move as a thinly veiled power grab that undermines the hard-fought gains of Black voters and rural communities. Former U.S. Rep. Eva Clayton, who represented the 1st District from 1992 to 2003, returned to the legislature on October 21 to denounce the plan. “You’ve done a disservice to my own people,” Clayton declared at a news conference, as reported by NC Newsline. “As well as politically. You’ve taken away the political power of minorities and rural people.” She described the map as a “power grab” that would displace a congressman “sensitive to the needs” of northeast North Carolina.
Clayton’s concerns were echoed by Sen. Natalie Murdock (D-Durham), who lamented the rollback of representation progress made since 1992. “I can only imagine the joy and pride she felt that the South, the homeplace of Jim Crow, was finally getting it right when it made history by electing her,” Murdock said, reflecting on Clayton’s historic election. “And now, in 2025, we are on the verge of subjecting the people of the 1st congressional district to having worse representation than they did in 1992.”
The rapid advance of the new map comes after a 2023 North Carolina Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for partisan gerrymandering, while still prohibiting the dilution of Black voting power. The current 1st District is already the subject of a federal lawsuit alleging racial gerrymandering, and any new legal challenges will likely hinge on Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act. However, opponents worry that a pending U.S. Supreme Court case could weaken those protections even further.
Rep. Don Davis, who narrowly won re-election in November 2024 and currently represents the 1st District, has been vocal in his opposition to the new map. In a statement issued after the Senate vote, Davis noted, “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.” He called the new map “beyond the pale” and said he was “considering all options on the table” for his political future, including running in either the new 1st or 3rd Districts. Davis’s home is located in the new 3rd District, but U.S. representatives are not required to live within their districts.
The public response has been nothing short of passionate. On October 21, more than 100 people gathered outside the old Capitol Building in Raleigh to protest the proposed map, while others packed committee rooms to voice their opposition during more than an hour of public comment. According to Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford), lawmakers received over 11,200 public comments online about the map—an exponential increase compared to previous redistricting efforts. During a House committee hearing, Harrison declared, “Everything about this process is so wrong. I’m just so angry about what we’re doing to our democracy today.”
The tension boiled over during committee meetings, with protesters chanting “Berger’s maps are racist maps” and “Racist maps make racist reps” before being escorted from the room. The House committee ultimately approved the bill along party lines. U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, speaking at the protest, summed up the sentiment of many in attendance: “Legislators, congresspeople, should not pick their constituents. Constituents, it’s your job … to pick your members of Congress.”
Republican leaders, for their part, have consistently sidestepped discussions about the map’s impact on Black voters, instead framing the redistricting as a necessary response to Democratic strategies in other states. Hise, who claimed to have drawn the map himself, told reporters, “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.” State Sen. Julie Mayfield (D) wasn’t convinced, countering, “What is different here is that state legislatures run by Republicans across the country are bowing to that request. It is wrong, and you know it.”
The stakes are high: North Carolina’s congressional delegation was evenly split 7-7 in 2022, but after the 2023 court ruling, it shifted to 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats. If the new map stands, the split could become 11-3 in favor of the GOP in 2026. And with redistricting plans not subject to gubernatorial veto, Democratic Governor Josh Stein is powerless to intervene.
While the battle over North Carolina’s congressional map is far from over, with lawsuits and further protests all but certain, the events of this week have laid bare the deep divisions over voting rights, representation, and the future of democracy in the state. For many, the struggle is not just about lines on a map, but about who gets to have a voice—and a seat—at the table.
