The political landscape in North Carolina is undergoing a dramatic transformation as Republican lawmakers push through a new congressional map designed to tilt the state’s representation in the U.S. House further in their favor. On October 21, 2025, the North Carolina state Senate approved a controversial redistricting plan that, if enacted, will give Republicans an edge in 11 out of the state’s 14 congressional districts, up from the current 10. According to CNN, this effort specifically targets the seat held by Democratic Rep. Don Davis, whose district in eastern North Carolina has been one of the state’s few remaining competitive battlegrounds.
This move is part of a broader, high-stakes campaign orchestrated largely at the behest of former President Donald Trump and his allies, who are calling on GOP-controlled legislatures across the country to secure additional Republican seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The Tar Heel State, with its reputation for political competitiveness, now finds itself at the center of what many are calling an unprecedented, mid-decade redistricting arms race.
Sen. Ralph Hise, a Republican who played a key role in drawing the new map, was candid about the motivations behind the effort. “The motivation behind this redraw is simple and singular: draw a new map that will bring an additional Republican seat to the congressional delegation,” Hise told CNN. He went on to warn that if Democrats were to take control of the House, they would “torpedo President Trump’s agenda.”
The process has moved at breakneck speed. State lawmakers convened their first public meeting on the new map on October 20, and the Senate gave its approval the very next day. The proposal now heads to the state House for consideration. Notably, under North Carolina law, Democratic Governor Josh Stein does not possess veto power over redistricting maps, leaving him largely sidelined in the process. Stein was quick to denounce the Republican maneuver, calling their actions “outrageous” and accusing them of “failing the voters of North Carolina by deciding for them who their congressional representation will be.”
The new map, as described by CNN, reshapes Davis’ district by swapping out several counties for more conservative communities along the coast, making it far more favorable to Republican candidates. This would effectively eliminate the last competitive U.S. House seat in North Carolina, a state where Democrats have managed to win statewide offices in recent election cycles despite the GOP’s legislative dominance.
Republican leaders, however, argue that the new boundaries reflect the will of North Carolina voters, pointing to Trump’s repeated electoral success in the state. “This new map respects the will of the North Carolina voters who sent President Trump to the White House three times,” said state Senate leader Phil Berger in a statement reported by CNN.
North Carolina’s redistricting battle is hardly an isolated event. The state joins Texas and Missouri in redrawing congressional maps this year to create more GOP-friendly districts, bringing the total to seven states with new Republican-leaning districts in 2025. Texas began the political arms race with a map that could send five additional Republicans to Congress, while Missouri’s new lines are also designed to add a GOP seat. Both states are facing court challenges, and activists in Missouri are pursuing a petition drive to overturn the map.
Meanwhile, Democrats are not sitting idly by. California has launched its own redistricting effort in response to Texas, with a multimillion-dollar campaign aimed at temporarily overriding maps drawn by an independent commission and creating as many as five new U.S. House seats for Democrats. According to CNN, this reflects a growing sense of urgency among Democrats as Republicans hold the governorship and legislative control in 23 states, compared to just 15 for Democrats.
Other Republican-controlled states are also considering or advancing new maps. In Kansas, lawmakers have allocated $460,000 for a possible special session to redraw districts, targeting the state’s lone Democratic U.S. House member. Indiana, where Republicans already enjoy a 7-2 edge, has come under pressure from the White House to target at least one of the Democratic-held seats, with Vice President JD Vance making two visits to lobby legislators. Ohio and Utah are embroiled in their own redistricting battles, with litigation and referendums looming large over the process.
Democrats have vowed a long-term fight against these Republican-backed redistricting plans. On October 21, North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton told The Daily Report, “We’re going to fight back.” The party is preparing to resist the new map through both political and legal channels, reflecting a broader national strategy to counteract what they view as partisan gerrymandering.
John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, echoed these sentiments in a statement to CNN: “Republicans are openly stating that they need to take away the voting power of the American people through gerrymandering in order to win the 2026 midterms. That alone is a sign of incredible weakness. The fact that they are taking the gerrymandering crisis to even more states beyond Texas and Missouri underscores just how scared they are of the opposition they are facing from the American people – even in deep red states.”
The debate in North Carolina has grown especially heated. During a Senate committee meeting, public commenters and Democratic lawmakers accused Republicans of orchestrating a brazen power grab. Mark Swallow of Democracy Out Loud, a liberal activist group, told legislators, “California hasn’t redistricted a thing. What they’ve done is respond to Texas, which started this fiasco for our country, and put an initiative on the ballot to ask Californians if they should be redistricted.” He continued, “You should do the same, but I doubt that you will because you know that North Carolinians will never approve this scheme. So, you are liars and cheats. That’s what this boils down to. You’re liars and cheats.”
Democratic state Sen. Val Applewhite accused Republican lawmakers of participating in a “coordinated national effort to reshape this country’s political map in [Trump’s] image to guarantee one thing: that Donald Trump and only Donald Trump remains in power.”
For his part, Trump celebrated the new North Carolina map on Truth Social, writing that it “would give the fantastic people of North Carolina the opportunity to elect an additional MAGA Republican in the 2026 Midterm Elections, which would be A HUGE VICTORY for our America First Agenda, not just in North Carolina, but across our Nation.”
As the redistricting plan moves forward in North Carolina and similar efforts unfold nationwide, the stakes for the 2026 midterm elections—and the future of congressional control—have rarely been higher. The outcome of these battles will shape the political map for years to come, with both parties bracing for a protracted fight that promises to test the limits of American democracy and the enduring tug-of-war over fair representation.
