Federal judges uphold several North Carolina US House districts drawn by Republicans

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Federal judges on Thursday upheld several U.S. House districts that North Carolina Republicans drew in 2023 that helped the GOP gain additional seats the following year. They rejected accusations the lines unlawfully fractured and packed Black voters to weaken their voting power.

The order by three judges — all of whom were nominated to the bench by GOP presidents — didn’t rule on changes made last month to the 1st Congressional District that are designed to unseat Democratic Rep. Don Davis in 2026.

That alteration, completed at the urging of President Donald Trump as part of an ongoing national mid-decade redistricting fray, is still being considered by the panel. The judges heard arguments in Winston-Salem but didn’t immediately rule on whether they would block now the use of the 1st District and the adjoining 3rd District for next year’s election while more legal arguments are made. Candidate filing for the 2026 elections is set to begin Dec. 1.

Many allegations made by the state NAACP, Common Cause and voters cover both 2023 and 2025 changes, in particular claims of voter dilution and racial discrimination violating the U.S. Constitution and Voting Rights Act.

The 2023 map helped turn a 7-7 North Carolina delegation into one in which Republicans won 10 of the 14 seats in 2024. Three Democrats chose not to seek reelection, saying it was essentially impossible to get reelected under the recast lines.

Thursday’s ruling by 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Allison Rushing and District Judges Thomas Schroeder and Richard Myers rejected claims that GOP legislators drew lines in 2023 so skewed for Republicans that many Black voters could not elect their preferred candidates.

“We conclude that the General Assembly did not violate the Constitution or the VRA in its 2023 redistricting,” they wrote in a 181-page order.

The judges convened a trial several months ago hearing testimony for a pair of lawsuits that challenged portions of maps redrawn in 2023. Thursday’s decision focused on five congressional districts: three in the Greensboro region and two in and around Charlotte, as well as three state Senate districts. The judges also upheld the Senate districts.

The plaintiffs argued Republicans split and weakened the Greensboro region’s concentrated Black voting population within multiple U.S. House districts. Then-Rep. Kathy Manning, a Greensboro Democrat, decided not to run again last year because her district shifted to the right. They also cited what they called packing Black voting-age residents into a Charlotte-area congressional district that in turn helped Republican Tim Moore win an adjoining district.

Attorneys for Republican leaders argued that lawfully partisan — and not racial — considerations helped inform decision-making on the 2023 map. They pointed out that no information on the racial makeup of regions were used in drawing the lines. A 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision essentially neutered federal legal claims of illegal partisan gerrymandering going forward.

The judges’ order favoring the GOP lawmakers said “the circumstances surrounding the plans’ enactment and the resulting district configurations and composition are consistent with the General Assembly’s non-racial motivations, which included traditional districting criteria, North Carolina law, and partisan performance.”

The ruling can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Spokespeople for Republican legislative leaders didn’t immediately respond late Thursday to emailed requests for comment. A lawyers group representing the state NAACP and others said it was disappointed with the ruling.

Still at issue are the changes made to the 1st and 3rd Districts that GOP legislators said are designed to create an 11-3 seat majority in 2026. Davis continues a line of Black representatives elected from the 1st District going back more than 30 years. But he won his second term by less than 2 percentage points.

North Carolina is among several states where Trump has pushed for mid-decade map changes ahead of the 2026 elections. This week, a federal court blocked Texas from using a GOP-engineered map.