This Wasn’t The Congressional Map North Carolina Republicans Wanted
The congressional map in today’s North Carolina primaries isn’t the first one that the state enacted. It isn’t even the second. Republicans drew two maps before this one that were struck down by the state Supreme Court for being extreme gerrymanders.
Originally, North Carolina Republicans drew themselves a very biased map that would have created 10 Republican-leaning seats, three Democratic-leaning seats and one highly competitive seat. But the court struck it down in February, ordering the legislature to pass a new map. It did, but the court rejected that map as well and imposed its own that was much fairer: seven Republican-leaning seats, six Democratic-leaning seats and one highly competitive seat.
North Carolina is used to this kind of cartographic whiplash, though. Between other gerrymandering rulings and the decennial census, this will be the fourth different congressional map North Carolina has used in the last five election cycles. And because the court put this map in place for the 2022 cycle only, the state will have to draw another new map before 2024.